


- U?', % V v < *_» - 

v * <■ V- ,v, r 

*- ,^ x * 


</* 


^ ° 
\ v .•>>• o 




* X ^ 



■<<> 0 - 


: \° °* * v m 

& % ''" ^ ^ S\ C> ' 

cK * J , A * -0 ~o. * 0 

x, <A * .•'* —.'*'V « ' <?“ J I 

* ; X X « - ^j 

^ 


• ,.,,“.*Q#r-. V /■ ?em>> * . » • 




^ V i 

XXV’a/' 

■> 


.^ x 


% 

•/ 


% 





y 'r, ' y A 




N* i ^ . '/> <9 M 0 \^ ’x ^ 

<y s XL '', cv v x *'*»,> L> 

'' • > qJ *- 

» Nf AV ' 


A . -e v fl 4 " o 



'</* A 
tP «^v 




r %, l 


‘ > © 0 X * 

LXXSr* ^ ^ c ~£s / jy&p ^ ✓> 

r A, p s p .0 

* 8 l -V * J 0 

. 9 * s ' \V> -C- 

^ ,A * ^Sfej'. V 

■s v - imw/Ji ' v " MPil - 

* • ^ ■% er 



C$ 'P- 

t * ^ Ar‘ » 

' 1 * * X ,# * v ‘ y;v v A .v°* v * 0 *° ■ c • 



8 I \ 


■ X': XX* " To ’ X<*., V ; * 1 '*' X v.., >; 


©. * 


^ A ■ 


0 N 


_ ^ (A ^ 


vV «P. 


't/> 

</» 




c>-X 


. n O 


























0 . . 6 V 



' ' .* 5 V A -> Hi 

k , - %• A ;^:J'n ° % A * 

\> «?„ 



-** „ \. Y * '^Uiy*&r \ 

° * ** K <b *** » * s ^ A o, ^ 

( - 0 ’ ^ 0 c * *%, A , - v l A 

' ^ K " -c <** v 

« *■ mi Tf^sA ' o o' 

r> 



\ v 


, 0c ^ 



%. *■ * 7 ^ * °V' c ^' * ,To ■> * # c 

> 8 1 s s * * r, a N 0 , V 

* A J C U V 

A * w <*■ v, ^ r, l S > , 

V* «\V * oKX 8 

</» ,^v « AXA 

r <* >. ■“ V.-' \N ‘ 


A 

\ V it () 

\> % ' ° /■ 
T»> v-"} 


<u <*• v„ - / y 
cb /- ' z ’^- 


*>\ 

Cv* t* ^ 

* * S S .A , I B '-^Z ^ 0 « J. ^ A O' f/ 7^ c S ^ A 

A **mk. * (?■ *AO ^ aA 

A' <w #'i/////Ap .x c^CAYulYxk. ^ '— 

/7\ 




N^ 7 o 4 ^ /- „ 

c ' 4 ^r. * * 

% \> »’-•», , 0 > s'*//* -*b ’* 

A > .Wa ' •£. A * /G®*'. ^ 

</» \v . o ,A1/:A. o ^ c* o - <f', 

ISIr : A A »fW; 

•a .A 



w c, 

* A ^ 


O' 

</> 


^ N 6 N , 

-A' c . 0 0 « <P ,A 

„ <* ^ .A v V 

■ - J J 


\\' ‘P- " ^'///PW^XNNI e» 

A v </> o 4 ,// nAw ^ s" 

rp ,> ^ £> -i ^ a v 

v i« v- y 0 * ^ * 4 * 





, , »' , 0 ‘ -o. ' (, • 0 " ^\" 

' s * <* / 3 M 0 V v * « 

A' A lyn* " ^ V 

.v * jGBh±\ ^ ^ ^ - - ‘ 

</> f^V a, 


























THE PRAYER LIFE 
OF JESUS 




/by 


Rev. M. E. DODD, a.b., d.d. 

ii 


Author of “Jesus is Coming to Earth Again, 

the Lion ” etc . 


>> « 



NEW 



YORK 


GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


& 


m+j 


Jesus, 


COPYRIGHT, 1923, 

BY THE SUNDAY SCHOOL BOARD 
OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION 


GIFT 

PUBLISHER 

OCT H /gg 






THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS. II 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



TO 

EMMA SAVAGE DODD 

WHOSE PRAYER LIFE 

HAS BEEN A SOURCE OF UNFAILING BLESSING 


/ 





INTRODUCTION 


Prayer is a most engaging subject. The possi¬ 
bilities of prayer are beyond enumeration. We 
are encouraged to pray for our temporal needs. 
“Give us this day our daily bread’’ is a temporal 
as well as a heart cry. “Our Father” is the long¬ 
ing for companionship and paternal comradeship. 
The hunger of the soul is satisfied. Eternal 
praise is on our lips; humbleness of spirit is 
wrought within us; boldness of approach is en¬ 
couraged; ideals are inspired; and walking with 
God is cultivated by prayer. It is the one uni¬ 
versal appeal which our Father never denies. 

What Jesus said about prayer and how He en¬ 
couraged His followers to pray, have been the 
theme of His people in all ages. This theme has 
cultivated the atmosphere of prayerfulness. His¬ 
torians have lingered to record His words; exe- 
getes have expounded His teaching; human experi¬ 
ences have attested His meaning; and here poets 
have raised their loftiest hymns. 

But our Brother Dodd has, with great spiritual 
intuition, emphasised a phase of our Lord’s 
prayer life which has generally been overlooked. 
Others have told how our Lord prayed and what 
He said about prayer. Dr. Dodd enters the Holy 

vii 


Vlll 


INTRODUCTION 


of Holies and brings to our understanding how 
prayer reacted upon the Lord Himself. These 
hours when Jesus prayed, whether in the lonely 
mountain or in Gethsemane, touch the most inti¬ 
mate scenes of His earthly life. No other book 
touches this phase of the prayer life of Jesus. 

It was with thrilling delight that hundreds 
heard Dr. Dodd lecture on these themes. His 
coming to the Baptist Bible Institute to lecture 
on this subject was keenly anticipated. His gra¬ 
cious and spiritual words met every expectation 
and not only satisfied his numerous hearers but 
likewise marked a distinct high place in the most 
exalted month the Baptist Bible Institute has ever 
known. 

This book is sent forth in its mission of love 
with the expressed hope that it will quicken others 
and lead to more devout communion with the 
Father as the Spoken Message did for those of 
us who were fortunate enough to hear these lec¬ 
tures. 


Baptist Bible Institute, 
New Orleans, La. 


John T. Chkistian. 


FOREWORD 


This series of studies is the substance of ad¬ 
dresses which have been given to various Young 
People’s assemblies, Bible Conferences, and Gen¬ 
eral Assemblies throughout the country. 

It is not intended to cover all the subject of 
prayer; not even all the phases of prayer that 
Jesus Himself touched. Neither the Model 
Prayer which He gave His disciples in the sixth 
chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, and which has been 
the subject of many volumes, nor anything else 
that He said about prayer, is touched. 

It has been my purpose to discover what Jesus 
did, what He said, and what happened in His 
own personal private and public prayers. 

It appears to me that the greatest need of the 
Kingdom of God and of the world to-day is more 
intercessors, more of God’s remembrances who 
give Him no rest day or night. But the need 
is just as great that those who pray shall know 
how to pray. There is too much prayerless pray¬ 
ing. . " ~~ 

If this little look into the prayer life of our 
Lord shall help anywhere in increasing the num¬ 
ber of those who pray, and increasing the power 
of those who have been praying by virtue of their 

ix 


X 


FOREWORD 


following the example of Jesus, then I shall be 
abundantly repaid for this humble effort. 

I am indebted to many friends who have en¬ 
couraged me in this work, and to the many inter¬ 
cessors who constantly buttress me about with 
their prayers.- 

I am especially indebted to Rev. Finley W. 
Tinnin for helpful suggestions and corrections 
of the manuscript. 

M. E. Dodd. 

Pastor’s Study 
First Baptist Church, 

Shreveport , La . 


CONTENTS 


Introduction 

• t • • 

• 

• 

• • 

PAGE 

vii 

Foreword 

• 

• • • • 

• 

• 

• • 

ix 

SECTION 

I: 

PRELIMINARY 

CONSIDERA- 


TIONS 

• 

• • • • 

• 

• 


23 

i 

HIS 

PLACE OF PRAYER 

• 

• 


23 

ii 

HIS 

POSTURE IN PRAYER 

• 

• 


31 

hi 

HIS 

APPROACH IN PRAYER 

• 


37 

IV 

THE LENGTH OF HIS PRAYERS 


43 


SECTION II: THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 

AS KING.51 

I HIS PRAYER OF PRAISE- Matthew 

11:25-26.51 • 

ii grace at meals — Matthew 14:19 . 55 

III BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN- Matthew 

19:13.58 ^ 

IV HIS PRAYER OF PERMISSION- Matthew 

2 6:39 . 71 

SECTION III: THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 

AS SERVANT.85 

i his morning watch — Mark 1:35 . 85 

ii his prayers for the sick— Mark 7:34 90 

III HIS PRAYER IN THE SINNER’S PLACE- 

Mark 15:34 ..... 102 


xi 




CONTENTS 


PAGE 


• • 

Xll 

SECTION IV: THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 

AS MAN.Ill 

I HIS PRAYER AND PLAIN DUTY- Luhe 

3:21-22 .Ill 

II HIS PRAYER AND PLAIN LIVING- Luke 

5: 16; 6: 12 .118 

III HIS PRAYER AND TRANSFIGURATION GLORY 

Luhe 9 : 28-29 ..... 123 

iv his prayer for forgiveness— Luhe 

23:34 .130 

V JESUS AT PRAYER IN GETHSEMANE- 

Luhe 22: 39-40.137 

SECTION V: THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 

AS GOD’S SON.147 

I HIS PRAYER AT THE GRAVE- John 

11:41-42 .147 

II HIS INTERCESSORY PRAYER- John 17 . 156 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 





THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


“Behold He Prayetli” 

No man ever accomplished so many tasks in 
so brief a span of time as did Jesus. And yet 
no man ever spent more time in prayer than did 
He. Perhaps it would be better to say it this way: 
No man ever accomplished more than did Jesus 
because no man ever devoted as much time to 
prayer. Luther was wont to say that “Prayer 
and provender hinder no man on his journey.” 
The more a worker for God prays the sharper 
will he his tools. 

Only a casual reading of the Gospels will im¬ 
press one that a great part of Jesus’ life must 
have been given to prayer and meditation. 
Prayer to Him was no mere formality nor per¬ 
functory performance. It was a most vital and 
real experience. The repetition over and over of 
meaningless phrases by the hypocritical Pharisees 
on the street corners was to Him an object of con¬ 
tempt. It was not real prayer. 

Prayer, to Jesus, meant fellowship with the 
Great Father. Prayer was the means of “get¬ 
ting things from God.” Prayer was the refuge 
from life’s storms. Prayer planned the Kingdom 
movements, selected the apostles, established the 

15 


16 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


church. Prayer warded off the fiery darts of the 
enemy until the fulness of time for their final 
fury to burst on Him, and then prayer prepared 
the Lord for the worst. Prayer was His safety 
valve which released the pent-up passions and 
gave vent to the smouldering fires within. 

Jesus began His public ministry with a prayer 
at the holy ordinance of His baptism (Luke 3:12) 
and closed it with a petition in the midst of the 
agonies of the cross. And all in between He was 
constantly borne upward and onward upon the 
wings of prayer. Prayer consumed much of His 
time and energy. 

Jesus met every onslaught of the enemy with 
prayer. Prayer sustained Him from the desert 
wilderness, where the battle raged fierce and 
furious for forty mortal days, until in hunger 
and loneliness and weariness of body, it seemed 
He must yield. It was by prayer that He was 
supported clear through to the final attack in 
Gethsemane, when, bowed and bent and almost 
broken with the weight of the world’s sins, He 
cried: “Let this cup pass.” He ever found one 
unfailing resource in prayer, and through its 
power met and engaged and conquered the arch 
fiend of all darkness, devilishness and doubt. 

Prayer to Jesus was both an act and an atmos¬ 
phere. In it He lived, moved and had His being. 
He met every emergency, faced every difficulty, 
conquered every foe by the power of prayer. 
Oftentimes “He retired into aloneness with God, 


17 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 

and spread out His Spirit before the Father, as 
Gideon spread out his fleece on the plain of Jez- 
reel to be filled with the heavenly dew.’ ’ 

There is no greater need among us to-day than 
that we shall enter for a season into the school 
of prayer with our Lord. The most casual and 
superficial observer of our times cannot fail to 
be impressed with the prevailing prayerlessness 
of this modern age. There is even prayerlessness 
in our prayers. It is noticeable among deacons, 
ministers and members. Too many of God’s peo¬ 
ple are committing the sin from which Samuel 
craved deliverance, of failing to pray for one an¬ 
other and for the world (I Samuel 12:23). In 
the midst of the earth’s most tragic and trying 
times the thing at which God marvels is ‘ ‘ that 
there is no intercessor” (Isaiah 59:16). 

Church people work and toil and strain and 
strive until nerve force is almost exhausted, and 
in desperation wonder why more is not accom¬ 
plished. God explains it, “Ye lust and have not; 
ye kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain; ye 
fight and war, yet ye have not because ye ask not” 
(James 4: 2). 

Dr. John R. Mott reminds us that “an alarming 
weakness among Christians is that we are pro¬ 
ducing Christian activities faster than we are pro¬ 
ducing Christian experience and faith; that the 
discipline of our souls and the deepening of our 
acquaintance with God are not proving sufficiently 
thorough to enable us to meet the unprecedented 


18 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


expanse of opportunity and the responsibility of 
our expansion.’’ 

Ours is a machinery age and we are attempting 
to make up in the Kingdom of God for the lack 
of spiritual power by mechanical force. It is 
easier to organise than to agonise and we extol 
“pep” above power. 

There is no force within the reach of man so 
vitally necessary to meet the impending dangers 
of the day as that of believing prayer. And there 
is no one who can teach us to pray as does our 
Lord. We shall, therefore, walk with Him 
through the Gospels from His baptism to Cal¬ 
vary, observing His ways and words, His con¬ 
duct and character, His place and posture, His 
meaning and accomplishment while at prayer. 

The source of our information for this study 
is, of course, the four Gospels; or rather the 
Gospel as revealed by the four writers, Matthew, 
Mark, Luke and John. The composite picture of 
the four gives us the perfect Christ, and we are 
to look for the perfect Christ at His highest ex¬ 
ercise as seen in the act of prayer. “Praying is 
the very highest energy of which the human soul 
is capable.” 

The masterpieces of art are reproduced in all 
their beautifully blending colours by a process 
of photography and printing which gives to us in 
prints a magnificent and perfect reproduction of 
the original. 

The photographic instrument is so arranged 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 19 

with certain coloured glass and lenses that when 
placed before the painting it allows only certain 
rays of light to penetrate, for example, the pur¬ 
ple. From that film a photograph is made, then 
a half-tone cut, and from this the first impression 
of the painting is produced. Once more the cam¬ 
era is changed by transfer of the coloured glass 
so that other certain rays of light are permitted 
to penetrate, for example, the blue. From this 
the cut is made and thus the second impression 
is printed over the previous piece. This process 
continues through just as many times as there are 
different colours to be reproduced. When the last 
impression is made we have a perfect reproduc¬ 
tion of the painting. 

This is the process followed by the writers of 
the Gospel in their work of reproducing the Mas¬ 
terpiece of all time, the Lord Jesus Christ. Mat¬ 
thew turned his camera upon that matchless Man 
and drew forth the royal rays of His Kingship 
and stamped that in his part of the Gospel. Mark 
came with his camera and drew out the blue rays 
of loyal service as Jehovah’s servant and stamped 
that on the print. Luke drew forth the pure life 
of a perfect Manhood and made this impression 
with his Gospel. John’s instrument penetrated 
the Eternities and photographed the Christ who 
was and is and is to be, the Pre-existent, Eternal 
Son of God, and stamped that upon the print. 

And these four give us the perfect picture of 
the perfect Man and of the perfect God. 


20 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


We shall follow His footsteps through the Gos¬ 
pels with the writers as guides, not to hear what 
He said about prayer, nor what He taught by 
word of mouth concerning prayer; but to see what 
He taught by example and to observe what He 
himself said and did while at prayer. May the 
Holy Spirit open our eyes to understand what 
it all means and give us a like mind and heart 
with Him. 


“Lord, teach us to pray.” 


SECTION I: PRELIMINARY CON¬ 
SIDERATIONS 

T H E PLACE, POSTUEE, APPEOACH AND LENGTH 

OF HIS PEAYEES 



' 













SECTION I: PRELIMINARY CON¬ 
SIDERATIONS 

I 

HIS PLACE OF PRAYER 

Jesus had preferred places of prayer. It is 
said of Him 4 ‘that He went into a certain moun¬ 
tain to pray”; “He went into the wilderness to 
pray.” It was His habit to go into the garden 
for the purpose of prayer. 

So fixed was this habit that it became known 
to all of His disciples. When Judas would be¬ 
tray Jesus into the hands of the enemy he knew 
exactly where to find Him, because “He often re¬ 
sorted thither 4o pray.” 

These places were sacred, not because of some 
special service, or consecration, or dedication; nor 
because of some priestly incantations over them, 
but because of some personal experience had at 
them. 

Peniel was a sacred place because Jacob there 
saw God face to face. Abraham’s desert tent be¬ 
came precious in his memories because of the 
heavenly visitor that came to him there. Moses 
recognised the ground as holy at the burning bush 
because it was there that he heard the still, small 

23 


24 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


voice of God. The Isle of Patmos was a dedicated 
temple of worship to John because he was in the 
Spirit on the Lord’s Day at that holy place. The 
Mamertine prison will forever be a sacred spot 
because in that the passionate Paul received from 
God his marvelous revelations of Divine truth. 

Thus did Jesus find the Mount of Olives a place 
particularly sacred and lending itself in a gra¬ 
cious way to the spirit of prayer. 

It was on this place that God was wont to be 
worshipped in ages gone by (II Samuel 15:32). 
It was here that God appeared to Ezekiel (Ezekiel 
11:23). From the brow of this hill branches were 
gathered for booths at the rebuilding of Jerusa¬ 
lem (Nehemiah 8:15). 

And some of the most sacred experiences of 
our Lord Himself clustered around this place. 
Descending its sunny slopes He made His tri¬ 
umphal entry into the city. From its crest He 
wept over the fate of Jerusalem. When the 
stormy end was approaching, from this hill He 
prophesied the city’s destruction. It was this 
place that furnished Him quietness and rest fol¬ 
lowing the last Passover and the establishment of 
the Lord’s Supper. From this hill He was also 
to pass out from among the disciples, step into 
the chariot of God and ascend to Glory on High. 
When He comes to this earth again His blessed 
feet will touch it first on Olivet (Zechariah 14:2). 
What historic interest, what holy memories, what 


HIS PLACE OF PRAYER 25 

glorious anticipations are associated with this 
place. 

No wonder that He oft resorted thither to pray. 
No wonder prayer was easy and sweet and power¬ 
ful in this place. What a lesson for us poor mor¬ 
tals, teaching us that if prayer is to he real and 
vital and intimate there must he certain spots to 
which we can hide ourselves away from the storms 
of life’s temptations and trials for a season with 
the Good Father. 

To us it may be some quiet spot on the old 
farm; some little country church house; some in¬ 
valid chair; some attic comer in our own home; 
some closet in our place of business; some 
secluded corner in the church house, some par¬ 
ticular pew; some place—any place where 4 ‘God 
comes down our souls to greet, and glory crowns 
the mercy seat.” 

A great business man, a friend of mine in New 
York City, invited me to pay him a visit. I had 
been a happy guest in his lovely Christian home 
in the South many times. I had some misgiv¬ 
ings about his going to the great city and looked 
forward to this first visit with him there with 
keen anticipation, and yet with some anxiety as 
to what I should find concerning his progress or 
backslidings in his Christian life. 

When I had run the gamut of office boys and 
secretaries and found him in his private office 
I found the same plain fine Christian business 



26 THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 

man that I had known in the South. Just before 
going out to lunch he said, “I want you to see 
this little room just back of my private office.” 
He never shows it except to most intimate friends. 
In that little room was a table with an open Bible 
and one window. The great business man said 
quietly to me: 

“This is where I always consult the Senior 
Partner of our business about all of its greatest 
problems. When I started in the business world 
twenty-five years ago as an office boy at a salary 
of three dollars a week I took the Lord Jesus 
as my partner for life. From then until now 
with this colossal business on my hands and the 
great salary I am drawing Christ has been con¬ 
sciously real and practically helpful in a thou¬ 
sand ways. When in distress I come into this 
place and never fail to find help. For example: 
We had engaged a vessel for some export service, 
but the Government having gotten into the Great 
War requisitioned this vessel. What was I to do? 
I came in here to ask Him who knoweth all about 
all things. I said to Him: ‘Now, Lord, this is 
your business and my business; if I prosper your 
cause will get the benefit of the prosperity; if I 
lose, your cause loses also; you know whether it 
is best for me to have a vessel for this export 
and you know where I can get one; show me now 
the way.’ In less than one hour I had a propo¬ 
sition on my desk for another vessel at several 
thousand dollars less than the former one would 


HIS PLACE OF PRAYER 


27 


have cost me. These thousands of dollars saving 
I figured belonged to the Lord. I had my own 
legitimate profit from the business itself.” 

It works! 

My friend expressed doubt as to wbat we 
preachers might say about an experience of that 
kind, but declared that to him, a plain business 
man, it was a very profound reality. Why not? 

Furthermore, if one is a partner with Christ 
why should not this be the ordinary experience 
of life rather than the unusual ? Is not the failure 
due to the fact that we do not consider it an ob¬ 
ligation to share with Christ the successes which 
He assists us in achieving? 

A beloved physician whom I know, and a faith¬ 
ful deacon, was showing me through his private 
sanitarium. 

“This is the guest room; here are the offices; 
this is the dining-room; yonder is the X-ray 
room; here is the operating room, and these are 
the patients’ rooms. 

“But chief of all,” said he, “here is the best 
room in the building, my prayer room,” and he 
ushered me in. It was in the roof of the build¬ 
ing, with no light except that which came in 
through a small skylight. 

“It is well, deacon,” said I, “that all of your 
light comes from above.” 

“Indeed it does,” he replied, “because I never 
perform an operation without coming to this- room 
and asking the Great Physician in His Supreme 


28 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


wisdom and strength to clear my mind that I may 
think properly; to steady my nerves that I may 
operate cleanly; and to guide my hand that I may 
make no mistake.’’ 

It is no wonder to me that in his town this 
“beloved physician” has as much practice as any 
other half dozen physicians and does more than 
half of the entire surgical work of the city. Such 
a physician has tremendous advantages over all 
others. He is the only kind who shall ever pre¬ 
scribe for or operate upon me or mine. 

To me personally there are certain places 
where, when praying, heaven comes a bit nearer 
and the Lord seems a hit dearer. 

One of these is a country roadside in Tennessee, 
along which I trudged a barefoot thirteen-year- 
old boy for many weary nights to the little coun¬ 
try church house during the revival meetings in 
search of salvation. 

Twenty-five years afterward when I had gone 
through school and college and had become pas¬ 
tor of a great city church I was invited back there 
to hold a meeting in the same little country 
church. At the close of the first service the pas¬ 
tor said: “We are going to Brother Butler’s for 
dinner—have you any preference as to the road 
we shall take f ” I expressed the desire to go along 
a certain way, and arriving at a certain spot I 
asked him to stop while I should find as nearly 
as possible the place of that great experience 
of a quarter of a century ago when such a great 


HIS PLACE OP PRAYER 


29 


change had been wrought in my heart. Finding 
the very tree by the side of which on that won¬ 
derful night I had knelt in prayer, I knelt down 
once again. A flood of memories swept through 
my soul. I remembered the burden I had felt 
for sin, the terrible consciousness of guilt before 
God. I remembered how in desperation I had 
sought peace a thousand ways to find; and how 
at last on that wonderful night I had stopped on 
this roadside to commit myself to Christ. There 
I had lifted up my despairing cry for mercy; and 
there had seen the tendernesss and compassion of 
that sweetest of all faces; and there had heard 
the sweetest words that ever fell on mortal ears, 
the words—“Thy sins be forgiven thee.” There 
I had found the peace of God that passeth all 
understanding, that peace which the world can 
never give nor take away. It was a holy place; 
it was a sacred place. And now, twenty-five years 
afterward, it was a Bethel to my heart. Prayer 
seemed more real. God seemed nearer because 
of this sacred place, my shrine of prayer. 

When I started overseas with our soldiers I 
passed again through Tennessee and Kentucky to 
say “good-bye” to my friends. I visited the town 
of my first pastorate after leaving college. After 
a public service and a few personal calls on some 
real old friends I asked that I might go to the 
little village cemetery. I did not know how a 
journey over the seas in the midst of war’s deso¬ 
lation and destruction would end. I needed more 


30 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


of the assurance of Divine power and help. I did 
not know where I could find it so quickly as on 
one sacred little spot of earth out in that ceme¬ 
tery. So I went there. Some kind friends had 
anticipated the visit and had carried fragrant 
flowers to the little grave. Arriving there the 
other friends, with keen spiritual perception, 
knowing that I desired to be left alone, passed 
on. There alone in the quiet place “I met the 
Master face to face.” 

Kneeling beside the little grave under the sob¬ 
bing cedars, memories of that Christmas time, a 
dozen years before, returned. There with the 
falling.snows we had put the little one in the cold 
earth. There came also memories of God’s glori¬ 
ous hand and marvelous grace which in infinite 
love came upon me that sad time. And prayer 
at this sacred place was made more real. Call 
it mere sentiment if you will; sentiment is the 
thing that brings God close to us. Man by the 
road of reason alone cannot find God. 


II 


HIS POSTURE IN PRAYER 

"And He was withdrawn from them about a 
stone’s cast, and kneeled down and prayed.”— 
Luke 22: 41. 

“And He went a little farther and fell on His 
face and prayed .”—Matthew 26: 39. 

“And Jesus lifted up His eyes and prayed.”— 
John 11: 41. 


Jesus never prayed while sitting. He always 
stood, as at the grave of Lazarus, or Jcneeled 
down, or fell on liis face. Prayer is too sacred 
and holy and divine to be so lightly dealt with 
as to sit in one’s seat while talking to the King. 

The posture one assumes in prayer may appear 
unimportant to some. “It is not so much the 
physical attitude as the spiritual condition which 
counts,” we are told. And to confirm this the 
Scripture is quoted, “Man looketh on the out¬ 
ward part but God looketh on the heart.” 

This really is tragically true in regard to 
prayer. For what man sees of irreverence and 
disrespect in one’s physical posture in prayer God 
sees in the heart as their cause. It is the old 
law of cause and effect at work. The flippant, 
irreverent heart produces a thoughtless disre- 

31 


32 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


spect for Deity. And nowhere does it more ac¬ 
curately express itself than in prayer. 

Whether one has been so taught or not, there 
should be sufficient native instinct to bring him 
to his feet or knees when God is approaching or 
being approached. When a British soldier hears 
the call—“Soldiers, the King!” he suddenly rises 
to attention. When the President of the United 
States appears in public the audience, both by 
instinct and by training, rises to its feet. 

Oh, how much more reverence and respect does 
the King of Kings and Lord of Lords deserve than 
these earthly rulers! And why do not men bow 
down before Him, kneel in His holy presence, or 
at least stand in dignified respect? 

When Jesus stood or kneeled down or fell on 
His face in prayer, He was obeying the deepest 
impulse of His own pure heart and at the same 
time following the best examples of all the past. 

The wisest man of all Christ’s ancestors came 
to God for the solemn dedication of the great tem¬ 
ple and “stood before the altar of the Lord in 
the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and 
spread forth his hands toward heaven.” This 
was not only the practice of the past and the 
method of Jesus but He also taught it. “And 
when ye stand praying.” 

There are two little things connected with these 
examples of standing in prayer that may be quite 
insignificant within themselves, but to which at- 


i 


HIS POSTURE IN PRAYER 


33 


tention is here directed for whatever they may 
mean to any one. 

In Solomon’s prayer as he stood he “spread 
forth his hands.” With arms outstretched and 
palms upturned as if open and ready to receive 
whatever blessing the good God would pour into 
them, he stood in devout reverence and poured 
forth one of the most passionate prayers of all 
the Bible (I Kings 8:22-53). It is one of the 
mysteries of permissive Providence and one of 
the enigmas of human history that the “spread 
forth” hands and upturned palms, which in the 
glorious past of Israel was expressive of the deep¬ 
est humility, devoutest reverence and most wor¬ 
shipful spirit, should now be the expression of 
ridicule and the butt and jest of a great people. 
But such seems to be the “wonders of prophecy” 
and the exigencies of time. It is the ebb and flow 
of the tides of time for men and races. 

The other item to which attention is drawn is 
that when Jesus stood to pray He “lifted up His 
eyes.” This was done at the grave of Lazarus, 
at the feeding of the five thousand, and on other 
occasions. “He lifted up His eyes.” Whether 
He ever closed His eyes while at prayer or not, 
we do not know, for it is not said. 

We close our eyes in prayer in order to shut 
out all sight of material things and to shut our¬ 
selves in to the vision of God by faith. This is 
very good and is not to be criticised, but our 


34 THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 

Lord’s example does not require it. We might 
with as much reason stop our ears while praying 
in order to shut out all earthly sounds and to 
shut ourselves in to the voice of God. 

But kneeling is the most natural posture in 
prayer. Not only did Solomon stand in prayer, 
but upon the brazen scaffold which he had built 
for the purpose “he kneeled down upon his knees 
before all the congregation of Israel” (II Chroni¬ 
cles 6:13). 

The Psalms in which we find more of real 
prayer and the spirit of prayer than anywhere 
else in the Bible, exclaim, “0 come, let us wor¬ 
ship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, 
our Maker!” 

A child kneeling beside the bed at his evening 
prayer must be a joy to God and angels. A whole 
household kneeling in family prayer is a crown 
of glory to national life. A congregation of de¬ 
vout worshippers upon their knees in prayer is 
earth’s most glorious gathering. A convention of 
Christian people planning for the performance of 
Christ’s Kingdom work, if upon its knees, need 
not fear devils nor demons, for “Satan trembles 
when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees.” 

Though in no sense a formalist or a literalist 
or a ceremonialist, I cannot find it in my heart 
to object to those churches which provide kneel¬ 
ing benches in the pews for those who wish to 
kneel down in prayer. 

But the posture which expresses the deepest 


HIS POSTURE IN PRAYER 


35 


devotion and the most heart-rending anxiety is 
for one to prostrate himself upon his face in the 
very dust. 

The congregation of Israel had sinned griev¬ 
ously “And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto 
Aaron saying, Separate yourselves from among 
this congregation, that I may consume them in a 
moment. And they fell upon their faces, and said, 
0 God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall 
one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the 
congregation?” (Numbers 16:20-22). 

When Joshua met the unseen captain who had 
in his hand a drawn sword, he fell on his face 
to the earth and worshipped and said unto him, 
“What saith my lord unto his servant?” (Joshua 
5:14). 

“And David lifted u(p his eyes and saw the 
angel of the Lord” (I Chronicles 21:16). 

If one’s consciousness of sin be deep enough 
and his vision of God’s holiness be clear enough, 
and his realisation of the need of Divine help be 
strong enough, he will then fall upon his face with 
broken heart and contrite spirit and pray. 

Only once have I seen one thus prostrated in 
prayer. It was a heart-broken mother, who in tor¬ 
turous agony of soul over a wayward son fell 
upon her face and cried out, “If Thou save him 
not then blot my name out of the Book of remem¬ 
brance.” 

Only once did Jesus fall upon his face. It 
was in Gethsemane when he had gone “a little 


36 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


farther.” It is this “little farther” that counts 
in character and conquest. When he had gone 
“a little farther” and fell upon His face the 
bloody sweat sanctified the earth and a shriek, 
more terrible than earth had ever heard, rent the 
midnight air and reached unto heaven. 

Oh, what praying was that! How cold and 
formal and flippant and irreverent is the most 
of our praying in comparison! 

“Lord, Teach Us to Fray” 


m 


HIS APPROACH IN PRAYER 

Each prayer of the Lord’s always began with 
the word “Father.” There may have been quali¬ 
fying words, such as “0 Father”; “Holy 
Father”; “Our Father”; but the word “Father” 
was never absent from the prayers of Jesus. 
There is great significance in this fact. 

We hear some prayers begin with such expres¬ 
sions as “Almighty God,” “Eternal God,” etc. 
The difference between this and the method of 
Jesus is the difference between law and grace. 
They are as far apart in meaning as night and 
day. Under law we are servants; under grace 
we are children. Jesus, having become the end 
of the law for righteousness to all that believe, 
would teach us that our approach in prayer, from 
the moment of that experience of having accepted 
Him as personal Saviour, is the same as His. 

Furthermore, to begin our prayer with “Al¬ 
mighty God” sets Him too far off and too high 
up for us to reach Him. It may be all right for 
the guilty sinner to smite his breast and cry, 4 4 God 
be merciful to me.” But God’s child should say 
44 Father,” and may say 44 Father.” 

Indeed this is the only approach which the 

37 


38 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


sinner has, for God will not hear a sinner’s prayer 
(John 9: 31). The only acceptable prayer an un¬ 
regenerated sinner can offer is a prayer for mercy 
and forgiveness and salvation. 

There is one exception to be made to the state¬ 
ment above, “that Jesus always began His 
prayers with the word ‘Father.’ ” This is the 
prayer uttered on the cross recorded in Mark 
15:34: “My God, My God, why hast Thou for¬ 
saken me?” But this exception confirms rather 
than confutes the above proposition, because this 
prayer of Jesus was the sinner’s prayer. 

“For he hath made him to be sin for us who 
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteous¬ 
ness of God in Him” (II Corinthians 5:21). 
Christ became sin, but not a sinner. Sin was on 
Him, but not in Him. He took the sinner’s place, 
and having taken the sinner’s place He must pray 
the sinner’s prayer. Therefore He could not say: 
“Father,” but must say “My God.” 

Unregenerated sinners are the children of the 
devil (John 8:44). If God were their Father 
they would love Jesus (John 8:42). Then they 
could pray as Jesus prayed. But being the chil¬ 
dren of wrath by nature (Ephesians 2:3) and 
condemned under the law they must pray as Jesus 
prayed on the cross, “My God.” 

But we who are the children of God by faith 
in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:26), having been re¬ 
deemed from the curse of the law because He was 
made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13) have the 


HIS APPROACH IN PRAYER 


39 


privilege and the right of approaching God as 
He did, viz., on the basis of childhood. We, 
too, can say “Father,” “Holy Father,” “Our 
Father.” 

Jesus not only taught this by His example, but 
He gave the explicit word to His disciples—but 
to the disciples only—“When ye pray say ‘Our 
Father.’ ” That is to say, “your Father and my 
Father,” the Father of our regenerated spirits. 
This can be appropriately said only by those who 
have been born from above, born again. We say 
“Our Father,” which means “My Father,” be¬ 
cause I have been born again, and “the Father 
of the Lord Jesus Christ,” His only Begotten 
Son. 

This approach makes prayer powerful. It ful¬ 
fils the sublime condition of all prevailing prayer, 
that it may be in the name of the Lord Jesus. 
To pray in the name of the Lord Jesus means 
more than simply saying, “for Jesus’ sake” at 
the close of the prayer. It means that through 
His merit, by the right which He has purchased 
because of His atonement wrought out in my be¬ 
half, by virtue of the shed blood and my own 
cleansed soul, thereby, I can come saying “Our 
Father.” 

The privilege of thus approaching God in 
prayer also makes prayer very intimate, very 
sweet and very simple. If He is my Father 
through Christ, and He is, then I can come into 
His presence unafraid and speak to Him with the 


40 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


assurance that He will hear with a sympathetic 
ear. I can surely come to my Father joyfully, 
happily, and as a little child, climb upon His knee 
and whisper into His ear the deepest secret of 
my soul, with the assurance that He understands. 

Mr. David Lloyd George was sitting in a coun¬ 
cil at 10 Downing Street one morning conferring 
with representatives of other great nations over 
tremendously important affairs of State. Into 
the midst of this council bounded his cherub-faced 
little girl, unceremoniously, joyfully, and un¬ 
afraid, and ran at once to the knees of her father. 
Like the great man he is, he looked down at her 
sympathetically and leaned over to hear what she 
had to say. She whispered something into his 
ear, probably of some broken doll or of some 
childish desire, and he patted her on the head, 
smiling his sympathy of approval, and with sat¬ 
isfaction she bounded out again. 

How beautifully this illustrates what in a finer 
and higher and holier way is that relationship be¬ 
tween us and our Heavenly Father. God, our 
Father, has the care of worlds on His heart and 
the responsibility of upholding the universe in 
His hands. But with all that, His ear is always 
open to the cry of the child and we never fail 
to find that understanding heart and sympathetic 
smile when He is thus approached. 

I have seen large groups of children playing 
on the lawn while the mothers sat to themselves 


HIS APPROACH IN PRAYER 


41 


talking, and suddenly some mother would leap 
from her seat and start when no one else present 
was conscious of anything unusual. But in the 
midst of all the noise and din of children’s play 
her keen mother ear had caught the sound of a 
distressing cry from her own child’s voice. 

God’s ear must be marvelously keen to hear 
in the midst of the world’s clamour and clanking 
the voice of His child, but He has never yet failed 
to hear and to respond. His arm is not shortened 
that He cannot save, neither is His ear heavy that 
He cannot hear (Isaiah 59:1). 

In Mark 14:36 it is recorded that in the Geth- 
semane prayer Jesus said “Abba, Father.” This 
is the only Gospel which uses that word “Abba.” 
I am grateful that Mark put it in. The word 
“Abba” belongs to the child language of the 
Saviour. It is the babe’s prattle. It goes back 
to childhood’s golden hours when He once nestled 
in the Father’s strong arms and looked up into 
His face and stroked His cheek and said “dear 
Papa.” Oh, how blessedly tender and sweet and 
glorious this makes prayer. Prayer is fellowship 
with the Father. 

One who has a strong, noble Christian father 
in the flesh can appreciate this illustration. God 
pity those whom the doctrine of the Fatherhood 
of God through faith in Jesus Christ has no help¬ 
ful meaning, because of the wicked waywardness 
of an earthly father. Blessed be those children 


42 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


who can find in their earthly relationship a step¬ 
ping-stone to the Heavenly relationship with the 
Heavenly Father. 

If men everywhere are to pray as Jesus prayed 
then the unsaved people must say “My God, why 
hast thou forsaken me,” while the redeemed may 
tenderly call, “0 my Father.” 

“Lord, Teach Us to Pray.” 


IV 


THE LENGTH OF HIS PRAYERS 

The private prayers of Jesus were very long. 
His public prayers were very short. 

In private He spent hours upon hours in prayer. 
It is said many times that He spent a whole night 
in prayer alone. In the desert temptation He 
no doubt had many such nights with the Father. 
When the time arrived to choose twelve apostles 
He must needs spend an entire night in prayer. 
When the multitude would have forced an earthly 
crown on His unwilling head He retired into a 
loneliness with God and prayed. His private 
praying was marked by the length of the prayers, 
but His public prayers w T ere very brief. 

Any one of the recorded public prayers of Jesus 
can be repeated in from three to five seconds. 
This excepts the seventeenth chapter of John, and 
it is doubtful whether that prayer should be con¬ 
sidered as public or private. Certainly there were 
very few earthly ears, if any at all, which heard 
it. And the prayer which He told His disciples 
to say, as found in the sixth chapter of Matthew, 
can be repeated in twenty seconds. 

I wonder if there is any special significance in 
these facts: Is it true that in proportion as one 

43 


44 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


prays long in private he prays short in public? 
Or conversely, in proportion as he prays a short 
prayer in private he prays a long one in public? 
If this is true, then it is evident that some be¬ 
loved brethren who are honoured by being called 
upon for prayer at public functions are very far 
behind in their praying, even weeks, possibly 
months, and they seize this opportunity to catch 
up. 

Jesus’ public prayers, which were so short, are 
characterised by having just one definite thing at 
a time for which to pray. He did not ramble 
over the universe, but mentioned that one thing 
and was done. 

But His private prayers, which no doubt were 
more in the nature of fellowship than that of mere 
petition, consumed many hours. Something great 
always happened, however, immediately following 
one of these long private prayers. The “twelve” 
are chosen and sent out; the “seventy” were sent 
out two by two; the church was organised, or some 
other great kingdom movement started. Such is 
the power of prevailing private prayers. 

Not all of God’s children have yet learned what 
the fulness of that glory in prayer is which en¬ 
ables them to spend hour after hour upon their 
knees in holy communion with the Father. 

During an evangelistic meeting, being con¬ 
ducted in our church by Dr. L. R. Scarborough, 
things were going hard. At the close of an eve¬ 
ning service I asked those who would agree to 


THE LENGTH OF HIS PRAYERS 


45 


do so to remain for a season of prayer. There 
was no thought in my mind that it would go on 
through the night. To announce beforehand that 
there is to be an all-night prayer meeting simply 
for the sake of saying that we have had an all- 
night prayer meeting would destroy the real value 
of such a thing. At this service, however, we sim¬ 
ply thought of remaining for a few moments, but 
we were borne on by rising tides of the Spirit’s 
presence up to 12 o’clock, then 1, then 2, and 
thirty-eight were present at sunrise the next morn¬ 
ing. Some went home at 12 o’clock, but, finding 
that they could not rest, got out of bed and came 
back to the service. 

There was no set programme for the service. 
Scriptures were read; songs were sung; testi¬ 
monies given; prayers led by individuals here 
and there—just as the Spirit put it in their hearts. 
A beautiful child, who had remained for the serv¬ 
ice with her grandmother, was converted. A 
young man, whose voice had never before been 
heard in public in behalf of the Saviour’s cause, 
gave a testimony and definitely committed his life 
to Christian work. He has been an outstanding 
leader among the young people of his church and 
of the state ever since. He is one of those fine 
young business men that mean so much to the 
cause of Christ. He has since been made a deacon 
in his church. Another young business man who 
was present has found his Christian life made 
over since that experience. His wife and children 


46 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


have become members of the church and he him¬ 
self has been made a deacon. 

Many other personal experiences might be re¬ 
lated. Following this all night of prayer and 
praise more than twenty members were added to 
the church the next day, with millions of dollars 
of consecrated wealth, and the meetings swept 
on like a prairie tire to a mighty climax on the 
Sunday night following. 

Since then whenever some great task is upon 
us this same group is called together for prayer. 
Following one of these prayer services the church 
on a given Lord’s Day raised over $300,000.00 for 
the denominational missionary and benevolent 
causes of Christ. On another occasion there was 
born, in a similar prayer service, a great building 
enterprise, which has resulted in one of America’s 
greatest and handsomest church houses. 

Oh, the power that God has wrapped up in be¬ 
lieving prayers! It is inexhaustible. Private 
praying, if earnest and believing and zealous, will 
get great things from God. 

A Sunday school teacher had been going along 
at a 4 ‘poor dying” rate, spiritually, though indus¬ 
trious with methods and zealous in the prepara¬ 
tion of his lessons. Realising the need of some¬ 
thing more, he decided, one Saturday night, that 
he would pray it out, and the Sunday school hour 
on the Sunday morning found him still on his 
knees. He said a few words to the class, and then, 
to the surprise of everybody, one after another 


THE LENGTH OF HIS PRAYERS 


47 


began to get np to confess his negligence of Chris¬ 
tian duty and to pledge his life anew to Christ 
or to confess his own sins and accept Christ as 
Saviour. From that moment the class moved on 
until it became the greatest spiritual force in the 
city and the community. The teacher found that 
the lessons were more easily prepared; that sim¬ 
ple methods accomplished more than ever before, 
and that his own life had been enriched a thou¬ 
sandfold. 

There is a pastor who goes, occasionally, on Sat¬ 
urday nights to his own church house, after the 
lights are out and everybody else is gone, and 
enters his pulpit for prayer. He testifies that 
upon every such experience the presence of God 
on the following Lord’s Day service is more con¬ 
sciously realised and more visibly demonstrated 
than at any other time. 

Much private praying after the example of our 
Lord will weave into the woof and fibre of one’s 
spiritual being a keener sensitiveness to spiritual 
things and a deeper realisation of spiritual powers 
than all things else besides. One can do nothing 
in God’s work until he has prayed, but he “can 
do all things through Christ which strengtheneth” 
—after he has prayed. 

Let private praying be long and the public 
prayers short, if we would follow the Lord’s ex¬ 
ample. 





SECTION II: THE PRAYER LIFE OF 

JESUS AS KING 


SEEN IN THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW- 

11:25, 14: 19, 19:13, 26, 39 



SECTION II: THE PRAYER LIFE OF 

JESUS AS KING 


I 

HIS PRAYER OF PRAISE 
Matthew 11:25-26 

“At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank 
thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because 
thou hast hid these things from the wise and pru¬ 
dent and hast revealed them unto babes. Even 
so, Father: for so it seemeth good in thy sight.’’ 

This prayer follows a melancholy lament over 
apparent failure. It was on, what the average 
preacher would call, a blue Monday. Jesus had 
made an earnest effort in Chorazin, Bethsaida 
and Capernaum, but all of them had rejected His 
message. Even John the Baptist had begun to 
doubt and had sent messengers to ask, “Art thou 
He that should come or do we look for another!” 

Under such circumstances one might expect 
from any man a dirge of despair. But not so with 
our Saviour. He burst forth in a prayer of praise. 
His exuberant spirit could not be suppressed. His 
good cheer and perpetual praise were not de¬ 
pendent upon outward conditions and circum- 

51 


52 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


stances. They rested firmly upon an inward state. 
His relationship to God bore Him up. Because 
He was God’s and lived in the eternities and the 
circumstances of a passing day could not defeat 
Him, therefore He could exemplify the truth of 
the little verse: 

■S. 

u *Tis easy enough to be cheerful 
When life flows by like a song, 

But the man worth while 

Is the man who can smile 

When everything goes dead wrong.” 

“I thank thee” are the first words of Jesus’ 
first recorded prayer. “Exomologoumai” is the 
compound Greek word which He here uses. The 
word is used eleven times in the New Testament. 
It means, to thank, to praise, to promise, to con¬ 
fess obligations and acknowledge gratitude. It 
is the same as the expression used in Luke 10: 21, 
where it is said that Jesus “exulted in Spirit.” 
Jesus was saying in this prayer, “0 Father, Lord 
of heaven and earth, I thank Thee, I praise Thee, 
I adore Thee, I concur in the Divine will. ” ‘ ‘ The 
thing expressed is adoring acquiescence, complete 
satisfaction with that law of the Divine procedure 
about to be mentioned.” It is the “giving visible 
expression to unusual emotion.” It was a burst 
of enthusiastic praise; it was a shout. 

We need to restore this lost art of praise in 
our present-day praying, preaching and worship¬ 
ping. We storm against sin and plead for right- 




HIS PRAYER OF PRAISE 


53 


eousness and exhort to service, but all too seldom 
sing psalms of praise and prayers of thanksgiv¬ 
ing. We sing ditties and waltzes and ragtime and 
shun a hallelujah chorus. Prayers of petition and 
pledging and promising are prominent, but of 
praise there is all too little. 

Jesus has here set the fine example of how 
to “Be careful for nothing, but in everything by 
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let 
your requests be made known unto God. ’ ’ Having 
failed of this we have therefore missed the fulfil¬ 
ment of the promise, “And the peace of God which 
passeth all understanding shall guard your hearts 
and minds through Christ Jesus.” 

The words “thank” and “think” are very 
closely related. We probably do not thank much 
because we do not think deeply upon the blessings 
of God. 

There are two things in this Scripture in Mat¬ 
thew which brought forth this paean of praise from 
the heart of Jesus. He was praising the Father 
for concealing and for revealing. “I thank Thee, 
O Father, because thou hast hid . . . and hast re¬ 
vealed.” 

Spiritual truth is concealed by a wise provi¬ 
dence from speculative philosophers and sharp- 
witted men. It is not wise to “cast pearls before 
swine” lest they turn and rend you. Man can¬ 
not find God purely by intellectual efforts. Rea- < 
son is no revealer of Divine things. Cold philos¬ 
ophy cannot sound the depths of Deity. A 


54 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


worldly wise man cannot know Him “whom to 
know aright is life eternal.” 

Spiritual truth must be spiritually discerned. 
A man blind in his own self-conceit cannot see 
eternal things. God has hid spiritual things from 
all such and for this we should join Jesus in giv¬ 
ing devout thanks. 

But His thanksgiving is more exuberant over 
the fact that the Father has revealed them unto 
babes. The childlike mind of unassuming docility 
can easily be taught spiritual truth. Those who 
have no preconceived notions of their own, but 
who are willing to hear what God the Lord doth 
speak shall learn of Him. Many a country deacon 
has fathomed divine revelation of which some 
university professors have no conception. Many 
a John Jasper has learned things from God that 
the Ingersolls could never find out. 

A Kentucky friend of mine will never say 
6 ‘ Good-bye ’’ when we are separating. His parting 
words always are: “Don’t forget to praise the 
Lord.” Surely Jesus has set us a fine example 
that we should always praise the Lord, even in 
the midst of our greatest disappointments. 


n 


GEACE AT MEALS 
Matthew 14:19 

“And He took the five loaves and the two fishes, 
and looking up to heaven He blessed and brake 
and gave the loaves to His disciples P—Luke 
9:16. 

“Howbeit there came other boats from Tiberius 
nigh unto the place where they did eat bread after 
that the Lord had given thanks .”—John 6: 23. 

Jesus could no more think of eating without giv¬ 
ing thanks to the Giver of all good than He could 
think of blasphemy. 

A man who had never been accustomed to hav¬ 
ing thanks at his dining table said that he was 
cured of such base ingratitude by observing the 
conduct of some hogs in his orchard. He was 
shaking down the fruit from the trees and ob¬ 
served that the hogs ate ravenously of it with¬ 
out even so much as lifting up their eyes to the 
source whence came their blessing. It came upon 
this man with the force of a terrible conviction, 
“I am no better in my manner than these dumb 
brutes.” But he solemnly resolved to be better 
and to do better and ever afterwards had a bless¬ 
ing at his table. 


55 


56 THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 

Wesley has given us this beautiful verse, which 
is an appropriate grace: 


“Be present at our table, Lord, 

Be here and everywhere adored, 

These mercies bless 

And grant that we may feast with 

Thee in paradise.” 

But there are so many things which militate 
against the beautiful old custom of grace before 
meals that it requires a great deal of grace, con¬ 
secration, conviction and character to overcome 
them. 

For one thing, family discipline is so slack 
twisted that in many homes there are no regular 
hours for the family meal. Each member of the 
family straggles in according to his own inclina¬ 
tion and has his bite to himself, while many others 
have their meals sent to their rooms. Such family 
discipline is a deadly danger to morals, religion 
and character. It is a menace to civil and divine 
government. Bolshevism and anarchy start in the 
home. 

For another thing, everybody is in such a hurry 
these days that there is no time to stop and say 
“I thank you” even to God. 4 ‘Anyhow, why 
should we take the time,—God knows our hearts 
and knows whether or not we are grateful and 
there is no need to be always telling Him about 
it.” Such is the shallow reasoning of many a 
hard heart and many a hurried life. 


GRACE AT MEALS 


57 


For the most part, failure to give thanks is sim¬ 
ply the outcome of a thoughtless, if not a base, 
ingratitude, and that’s all there is to it. 

In many cases neglect of grace at meals may 
be due to an ignorance of just what to say or how 
to say it, but anybody who cares to can memorise 
and repeat some such verses as these: 

“ Father, we thank Thee for these blessings and 
pray Thee to consecrate them to our good.” 

“ Father, we thank Thee for this food for our 
bodies and pray that Thou wilt feed our souls 
upon the bread of life.” 

“Lord, we thank Thee for these friends, for 
this food and for our fellowship.” 

“We thank Thee, Father, for these and all Thy 
comforts.” 

“We gratefully acknowledge Thee as the Giver 
of every good gift.” 

“We thank Thee for our food and pray Thee 
to help us to use the strength we gain from it 
for Thy glory and honour.” 

I have wondered many times if there is not a 
vital relationship between our failure to give 
thanks to God for our food and to ask that He 
bless it to the nourishment of our bodies, and what 
we call “our dinner disagreed with us.” It might 
help digestion and general health more than we 
think to be more genuinely grateful and cheerfully 
thankful always for all blessings. 


Ill 


BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN 

“Then were brought unto Him little children 
that He should put His hand on them and pray.”— 
Matthew 19:13. 

It must have been a very tender and very beau¬ 
tiful prayer, this prayer of the Lord for the little 
children. Oh, how it must have warmed the hearts 
of the fond fathers and mothers. I wonder what 
He said in His prayer. The records do not tell 
us what the words of this prayer were. 

It may be that the records are silent here be¬ 
cause the disciples had acted so rudely toward 
these children and their parents. 4 ‘The disciples 
rebuked them.” Poor deluded disciples! They 
may have thought they were doing their Lord a 
kindness. He had great and mighty matters upon 
His mind and heart. They probably thought He 
should not be disturbed with such trifles as a fool¬ 
ish father asking a blessing upon a mere child. 
Therefore, as His protectors, they would shunt 
off these mothers and their children. 

But they did not know Jesus. His heart was 
made of different stuff. He loved little children. 
He saw the possibilities and potentialities 
wrapped up in them. He knew the children of 

58 


BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN 


59 


to-day would be the world leaders of to-morrow. 
And no matter how many grown-ups were clam¬ 
ouring for Him at this time, He would leave them 
long enough to put His hand on these little chil¬ 
dren and pray. 

Herein is disclosed the tenderness of the 
Saviour: Children found nothing in Him from 
which to shrink. Grown men and women are jus¬ 
tified in fearing that man of whom little-children 
are afraid. And the man who has nothing in his 
own heart which can be drawn out, sympatheti¬ 
cally, by a child is a man to be shunned. Show 
me a man who does not love children and flowers 
and music and I will show you one to be dreaded. 
Jesus was not that kind. With open arms He 
would receive every child who would come. i 1 Suf¬ 
fer little children to come unto me, and forbid 
them not; for of such is the kingdom of God.” 

A little Moslem child accounted for her prefer¬ 
ence for the Christian religion over Mohammedan¬ 
ism by saying: “I like your Jesus because He 
loved little girls. Our Mohammed did not love 
little girls.” With unerring instinct she had 
seized upon at least one of the two great and 
fundamental differences between the two re¬ 
ligions. Among all founders and teachers of the 
various religions of the world of all time, it was 
Jesus- alone who thought of and cared for the 
children, and who said, “Suffer the little chil¬ 
dren to come unto me.” The oft-repeated sneer 
that “Christianity is a religion for women and 


60 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


children” is, when rightly understood, a gem in 
its crown of glory. 

What will those wicked people who do not love 
children and do not want children do when they 
get to heaven, if perchance, by the mercy and 
grace of God, they ever get there? There will be 
myriads of children in heaven. But these hard¬ 
hearted souls will have a new nature in heaven, 
as well as a new name, and of course that will 
change their attitude toward everything, includ¬ 
ing children. 

What a rebuke is this prayer of Jesus for those 
most despicable of all persons who exploit chil¬ 
dren for their own personal gain. Jesus here 
announces His programme of protection for child¬ 
hood. He would fling Himself with all the power 
of His prayers between every helpless child and 
the piggish profiteer on child labour. Man’s in¬ 
humanity to man is nowhere more clearly revealed 
in the depths of its depravity than in the ex¬ 
ploitation of childhood. Jesus rebukes it. 

Christ’s prayer for the little children when an¬ 
swered will do several things. It will give them 
proper training. It will protect them from deadly 
dangers. It will provide homes for the helpless 
ones. 

The character and destiny of many a child has 
been determined by prayer. And this praying 
should begin before the child is born. No child 
ought ever to be born who is not born in the 
spirit of prayer. We may go farther back than 


BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN 


61 


this and say that children may be given in answer 
to prayer. Samuel was a prayer-gift child, and 
therefore a child of destiny. The genealogical 
line of the Saviour seemed broken at Abraham; 
but long after there was any chance by nature, 
the prayer of God’s handmaid broke over all the 
bounds of nature and Isaac came. John the Bap¬ 
tist was God’s answer to the prayer of His serv¬ 
ant, Zacharias. 

“ Train up a child in the way he should go and 
when he is old he will not depart from it,” are 
ancient words of wisdom. But how are parents 
to do this properly without prayer? They need 
the prayers of others and need to pray much 
themselves for wisdom in training and teaching 
their children. “If any man lack wisdom let him 
ask of God.” The responsibility of the parent and 
the teacher is very great. They need to know 
much more than “the psychology of the child 
mind.” They need to realise the greatness and 
the value of life and to feel the weight of re¬ 
sponsibility of an immortal soul. 

It is the greatest honour in the world to have 
a child entrusted to you. Children are the gift 
of God. Then if God sent them, He surely desires 
to share the responsibility of rearing and training 
them. Here is an opportunity, as nowhere else, 
to enter into a close, heart-interest partnership 
with heaven. It requires a great deal of consulta¬ 
tion with the Senior Partner of this big business 
of training children to conduct it aright. 


62 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


Judge Ben Lindsey, head of the juvenile court 
of Denver, says: “My experience, study and in¬ 
vestigation of juvenile life has convinced me that 
parents need to be taught the fundamentals of 
child rearing. I firmly believe that not more than 
twenty per cent of parents are relatively, and 
comparatively, competent to raise children.” 

Not only the parents, but the teachers who have 
the children so many hours each week, should pray 
much. God he praised for every public school 
teacher who realises the responsibility of his or 
her position and who devoutly petitions Almighty 
God every day for wisdom and grace to meet the 
obligations and opportunities imposed by the care 
and training of children. God have mercy upon 
us when the teacher has no concern for the char¬ 
acter of the child, but who is in the school room 
only for so much per month on which she can 
play high society. Have mercy also on the chil¬ 
dren whose school-teacher is nervous and irritable 
because her vitalities are sapped by nightly dances 
and theatre parties. 

The nation owes a debt of lasting gratitude to 
that great army of noble, self-sacrificing, under¬ 
paid public-school teachers who are in the work 
because they have followed the gleam of idealistic 
inspiration. They are the praying teachers. 
Whether or not they are permitted to pray pub¬ 
licly in the school room, they can and do pray pri¬ 
vately for their children. And they teach as much 
by example as by precept. Their character is a 


BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN 


63 


living lesson. God bless them. We parents 
should pray for them, too. 

The prayers of Jesus for children, and ours, too, 
if answered, would save little children from many 
dangers seen and unseen. The child is in con¬ 
stant danger of harm to body, mind and soul. 
Why more of them do not lose their lives is a 
mystery. And there are all sorts of poisons float¬ 
ing around in school and on the streets for their 
plastic little minds to catch up. Their souls are 
in daily danger. How are these dangers to be 
warded off? By that wisdom which cometh down 
from above which is given in answer to prayer. 

Parents should pray for their children’s health, 
asking God for sense enough to provide the chil¬ 
dren with wholesome food, plenty of sleep, out¬ 
door work and exercise. Many a child’s health 
is permanently injured for life because it is al¬ 
lowed to eat all sorts of trash and is hauled 
around at night to picture shows when it should 
be in bed. A sensible, praying parent would not 
do that. 

In a remote district of Wales a baby boy lay 
dangerously ill. The widowed mother walked five 
miles through the night in a drenching rain to get 
a doctor. The doctor hesitated about making the 
unpleasant trip. Was it really necessary and 
would it pay? He knew he would receive no 
money for his services, and besides the child, if 
his life was saved, would probably be nothing 
more than an ordinary labourer. But love for 


64 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


humanity and a sense of professional duty con¬ 
trolled him, and the child was saved. Y r ears after¬ 
ward when this child, David Lloyd George, be¬ 
came Chancellor of the Exchequer, the old doctor 
said: “I never dreamed that in saving the life of 
that child I was saving the life of a national 
leader.’’ 

The health of all children should be preserved, 
for who knows whether this one or that one shall 
be a great world character. But whether they 
become so or not, they will be worth more to the 
nation and the world if they have sound and 
healthy bodies. 

The parsonage at Epworth, England, was on 
fire one night, and Samuel Wesley, the father, 
rushed through the hallway to the rescue of his 
children. Seven children were out and safe on 
the ground, but one remained in the burning 
building. That one awakes, finds his bed on fire 
and the house crumbling in, comes to the window 
and two or more peasants make a ladder of their 
bodies, one standing on the shoulders of the other, 
and down the human ladder the boy descends— 
John Wesley. 

It is impossible to say how much depends on 
that living ladder throughout the world with its 
millions of men and women, blessed and saved, 
and all the agencies of the Methodist church at 
home and abroad stand as a result of the great 
and gracious work done by that human ladder in 
that ever memorable hour. That stairway of 


BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN 


65 


peasants’ shoulders is an example of ten thousand 
good results achieved by kindly and timely influ¬ 
ences exercised in circumstances of danger and 
pressing need. The human agency, properly 
directed, is one of the most potent forces in every 
phase of the world’s life, and by it and through 
it in every age the most beneficent results have 
been achieved. 

Parents and pastors and teachers need a great 
deal of prayer, grace and wisdom for the pro¬ 
tection of their children against the mental 
miasma of the day. It is a jazz age in which we 
are living. Much of the mental pabulum upon 
which the people are fed is not conducive to the 
growth of great intellects. The daily papers with 
their funny-page sections, and moving pictures 
with their silly vulgarities, the average conversa¬ 
tion of fun and foolishness, and even that theory 
in education which argues for moving along the 
line of least resistance, are all working toward 
the weakening of mentality and the devitalisation 
of intellectual energy, rather than the growing 
of great minds. Those who have a serious in¬ 
terest in the future of the children, and the con¬ 
sequent future of the nation and the world, must 
strive somehow to overcome this tendency. And 
prayer must be one of the great agencies through 
which it is done. 

Not only do dangers beset the bodies and minds 
of childhood, but there are also many pitfalls for 
their spiritual life. Much of the literature and 


66 


HE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


amusements of the day have not only a weaken¬ 
ing tendency for the mind, but a positively hurtful 
effect on the soul. They dull the spiritual sensi¬ 
bilities and blunt the finer qualities of the soul. 

The morals of the movies are most miserable. 
Any one with any moral sensibilities who attends 
the average moving picture will observe this. 

Their billboards blaze forth in lurid colours the 
most sensational stuff. And on the inside the 
screen portrays the most sordid conditions of 
humanity. Blood and thunder, wild west stuff, 
murders, suicides, domestic infidelity, divorce, 
robberies, thefts, prohibition violations, criminal 
men, vile women, nude bathroom scenes, bedroom 
scenes in night clothes, hugging, kissing, dancing, 
carousing, licentiousness, libertinism, law viola¬ 
tions, deceit, fraud, and such like are familiar 
screen scenes. 

When the mind of youth is constantly fed upon 
these things, what will the harvest be? We are 
really beginning already to reap the harvest of 
ten years of such sowing. It is the power of sug¬ 
gestiveness which makes such possibilities for bad 
in bad pictures. 

The multiplication of murders, the increased 
suicides, the growing divorce evil, the crime 
waves, which are apparent to all, must be charged 
largely to what the picture people themselves 
claim are the most influential moulders of ideals in 
this nation, namely, the moving picture play¬ 
houses. 


BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN 


67 


Nothing can stay the mind of these impious foes 
of childhood like intense, believing prayer. No 
wonder that fond fathers and mothers brought 
their little children to Jesus, that He might lay 
His hands upon them and pray. All the more 
do the children of our day need prayer. 

The prayers of Jesus for little children will also 
provide help for the helpless and homes for the 
fatherless. It is the Christ Spirit alone that ex¬ 
alts childhood, preserves its life, values its future 
and provides for its needs. Where Christ’s 
prayers for the children have never been heard 
there the girl baby, especially, is an unwelcome 
guest, and child widows are multiplied. The 
Christ prayer for children puts tenderness in the 
heart toward them and builds orphans’ homes for 
those who need them. 

Earnest prayers for the children while they are 
young, properly supported by wholesome disci¬ 
pline, diligent instruction and careful training, 
will save many a heartache for the future. 

It is a tremendously important moment in the 
home life when the new child arrives and espe¬ 
cially if it is the first one. This is a good time 
for the pastor to call and a most appropriate time 
for family worship. If it has not been previously 
done it is an opportune time to establish the fam¬ 
ily altar. 

Much more might be made, in the non-liturgical 
churches, especially, of children’s day or cradle- 
roll day in the Sunday school. If proper prepara- 


68 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


tion has been made for it, the special prayer for 
the children on those days, and for the fathers 
and mothers of the children, will abide through 
life as a never-ending blessing. 

Lord, teach us to pray, even as Thou didst pray, 
for the little children. 

“0 Thou great Father of the weak, lay Thy 
hand tenderly on all the little children on the earth 
and bless them. Bless our own children who are 
the life of our life, and who have become the heart 
of our heart. Bless every little child friend who 
has leaned against our knee and refreshed our 
soul by its smiling trustfulness. Be good to all 
children who crave in vain for human love, or 
for flowers and water, and the sweet breast of 
nature. But bless with a three-fold blessing the 
young lives whose slender shoulders are already 
bowed beneath the yoke of toil, and whose glad 
growth is being stunted forever. Let not their 
little bodies be utterly sapped and their minds 
given over to stupidity and the vices of an empty 
soul. We have all jointly deserved the millstone 
of Thy wrath for making these little ones to 
stumble and fall. Grant all employers of labour 
stout hearts to refuse enrichment at such a price. 
Grant to all the citizens and officers of states 
which now permit this wrong the grace of holy 
anger. Help us to realise that every child in our 
nation is in very truth our child, a member of 
our great family. By the Holy Child that nestled 
in Mary’s bosom, by the memories of our own 


BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN 


69 


childhood joys and sorrows, by the sacred possi¬ 
bilities that slumber in every child, we beseech 
Thee to save ns from killing the sweetness of 
young life by the reed of gain.”—(Rauschen- 
busch.) 

Prayers for children will go on blessing them 
long after the one who offered the prayer is dead. 
Many a loving mother has died with a broken 
heart over the unanswered prayer for a wayward 
son or thoughtless daughter. But perhaps at the 
grave, or even long years afterward, the sinner 
comes home to God and the parent’s prayer was 
answered. There are aged people now living who 
will bear testimony that they are still the bene¬ 
ficiaries of prayers offered for them in childhood. 

Many a life has been thrust out into the great 
field of Christian service by parental prayer. 
John G. Paton says it was his father’s prayer that 
sent him to the Hebrides. In the chimney corner 
on the outside of the house, when a lad, he heard 
his father’s voice in earnest prayer for the mis¬ 
sion fields. 

There are great numbers of strong men in the 
pulpit to-day and in theological chairs and on mis¬ 
sion fields, because a consecrated mother prayed 
for a preacher son. If there is a lack of ministers 
anywhere it is because parents and teachers are 
not praying for them. The way to get them is 
prescribed in the Scriptures: “Pray ye the Lord 
of the harvest that He shall thrust forth labourers 
into the harvest.” And if children hear that 


70 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


prayer often enough they will also hear the voice 
of God calling them to answer that prayer and 
will soon be saying, “Here, Lord, am I, send me, 
send me.” 

There is nothing that pays such dividends as 
praying for children. No wonder that Jesus 
stopped everything else and put His hands on 
little children and prayed for them. 


IV 


HIS PRAYER OF PERMISSION 

“And He went a little farther and fell on His 
face and prayed, saying, 0 my Father, if it be 
possible let this cup pass from me, nevertheless 
not as I will but as Thou wilt .”—Matthew 26: 39. 

“He went away again the second time and 
prayed, saying, 0 my Father, if this cup may not 
pass away from me except I drink it, Thy will be 
done .”—Matthew 26: 42. 

“And He left them and went away again and 
prayed the third time saying the same words.”— 
Matthew 26:44. 


The biggest thing in human life is the divine 
will. The highest heights to which a soul can rise 
is to be able to say, sincerely and truly, ‘ ‘ Thy will 
be done.” 

God has a definite plan for the world and for 
each and every man in it. The finest thing a 
man can do is to discover what that plan is for 
his own life and to do it. This is what Jesus did, 
supremely. 

From the beginning of His earthly career He 
faced the cross. A legend says that while yet a 
child He stood, one day, in the door of His foster 
father’s carpenter shop, just as the evening sun 

was going behind the western hills, and, stretch- 

71 


72 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


ing out His arms, made the shadow of a perfect 
cross on the floor. While this is only a legend 
it, no doubt, illustrates what He saw from the 
beginning. 

And everywhere, along His pathway, He was 
constantly reminded of that coming cross. Even 
in the transfiguration glory when the heavenly 
visitors came to confer with Him, Moses spake 
with Him concerning “the decease which He 
should accomplish at Jerusalem.” 

This cross was the Father’s will from the be¬ 
ginning. It was the only way by which human 
redemption could be accomplished, and human re¬ 
demption was the object of His visit to this earth. 
At the end of it all Jesus could truly say: “I have 
glorified Thee on the earth, I have finished the 
work which Thou gavest me to do.” 

Whatever there may have been in His mind 
expressed by the words, “let this cup pass from 
me,” I do not believe for one moment that He 
was seeking to evade the cross. This cup may 
be a divine mystery into which mere mortals 
might not seek to penetrate, but the mystery of 
the cross, even though it be a stumbling block to 
the Jews and foolishness to the Greek, is both 
the power of God and the wisdom of God to them 
that believe. 

Whatever it was over which Jesus stumbled 
and under which He staggered when He said “let 
this cup pass from me,” the glorious part about 
the prayer is that He immediately rose trium- 


HIS PRAYER OF PERMISSION 


73 


pliant over the difficulty and temptation, exclaim¬ 
ing, 4 ‘ Nevertheless not as I will but as Thou wilt! ’’ 

God’s will is the best thing for every human 
life. Out of the path of God’s will there are 
jangling inharmonies, unbearable burdens and 
calamitous failures. 

To say, “Thy will be done,” does not mean 
stoical submission to a burdensome and hard de¬ 
cree, but it means cheerful co-operation with a 
Divine and benevolent purpose. God’s will is not 
passive, but active. He sees and knows the future 
as we cannot. What may appear to be our great¬ 
est loss to-day because of God’s will, will turn 
out to be, under that benevolent purpose, our 
greatest gain for to-morrow. 

If Jesus were praying to be delivered from 
the cross, and He had persisted in it against the 
Father’s will He would have lost all His triumphs 
over Satan, all the souls of the world, and His 
own greatest glory. But giving Himself in cheer¬ 
ful, willing and active co-operation to the will of 
the Father, He led captivity captive, triumphed 
over death, hell and the grave, gave gifts to men 
and abides ever as the Lord of all. 

Many a poor miserable soul has found great 
discomfort in the assertion of his own self-will 
and in the rejection of God’s will. I know a poor 
mother who prayed for her sixteen-months-old 
child to be spared from death at whatever cost, 
regardless of the future and the future conse¬ 
quences. She set up her own will above all others 


74 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


for it to live. The child lived and has been for 
forty years a helpless infant, the greatest care 
and sorrow of that family circle. 

Two men felt called of God to go with our sol¬ 
diers overseas during the World War. The fam¬ 
ily of one of them, after prayer and in love and 
loyalty to God, said to the husband and father, 
4 ‘It is His will; you go.” The wife of the other 
rebelled and refused, saying, “We cannot get 
along without him; he cannot go with our con¬ 
sent.” 

The one who went did a great service for God, 
won thousands of souls to the Lord Jesus and 
returned home to find that the family had been 
kept in perfect health through the ravages of the 
terrible influenza epidemic, while the other man 
who had been kept at home had fallen victim to 
the deadly disease, and the wife, in the shadows 
of her widowhood, was forced to acknowledge that 
the human will was not always the best. 

Thoughtless persons sometimes say, 4 4 to do so 
and so, though God wills it, will cost too much,” 
failing to remember that not to do God’s will may 
cost a great deal more. It is not God’s will that 
is expensive, but rebellion against it. 

A man who had been a useful Christian worker 
for many years came upon a day of terrible test¬ 
ing. He wrote in his diary , 4 4 Sleepless nights and 
headaches and shattered nerves and broken health 
are all the results of the controversy I was hav- 


HIS PRAYER OP PERMISSION 


75 


ing with God.” Oh, these controversies we have 
with God! Jonah had a controversy with God 
about going as a foreign missionary, and three 
days and nights in the whale’s belly was the price 
he paid. Jacob had a controversy with God and 
wrestled with His messenger about it all night, 
and as a result was lame the rest of his life. Eli 
had a controversy with God about his boys: They 
got the best and he gave God second place. Their 
terrible death was the result. The church at Cor¬ 
inth had a controversy with God about the Lord’s 
Supper: Many of them were weak; some of them 
sickly and others died. 

We should be careful to distinguish between 
God’s permissive will and God’s directive will. 
All that is and all that transpires are within the 
circle of God’s permissive will. This does not 
make Him the author of sin or sickness or suffer¬ 
ing. God’s directive will comprehends only that 
which is good and that which is meant to accom¬ 
plish the highest good for all concerned. For a 
parent to permit the child on the floor to touch 
a heated stove that it might learn the lesson that 
fire burns and thus save it from being burned 
alive in the future, is different from that parent 
who by superior physical strength takes the 
child’s hand and wilfully thrusts it into a red-hot 
fire. Whatever God permits of suffering or sor¬ 
rowing to come upon His child, is meant for the 
child’s highest good, “For we know that all things 


76 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


work together for good to them who love God.” 
Only “to them that love God,” however, all things 
do not work together for good to all people. 

To know what God’s will is concerning one’s 
life, or any of the details thereof, is the privilege 
of every child of God. It is God’s desire that 
we shall know His will. That a man may know 
what is that good and perfect and acceptable will 
of God is the supreme effort of the Divine One. 
He is the self-revealing God, seeking always to 
make known His Divine plans. 

It is possible to find out His will upon many 
matters by searching the Scriptures: “For this 
is the will of God even your sanctification” (I 
Thessalonians 4:3). “In everything give thanks 
for this is the will of God concerning you!” (I 
Thessalonians 5:18). “For so is the will of God 
that with well doing you may put to silence the 
ignorance of foolish men ” (I Peter 3:17). “ That 
you may stand perfect and complete in all the 
will of God” (Colossians 4:12). The great apos¬ 
tolic benediction was “Make you perfect in every 
good work to do His will, working in you that 
which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus 
Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever, 
Amen” (Hebrews 13:21). 

We may find God’s will by being ivilling to obey 
it, yea, by obeying it. “If any man wills to do 
God’s will he shall know of the teaching” (John 
7:17). If we are honest in our prayer when we 


( 


HIS PRAYER OF PERMISSION 77 

say, i ‘Thy will be done,” we mean that we are 
willing to help answer that prayer. 

Too frequently we map out our own plans for 
life and then ask God to help us execute them, 
instead of first surrendering our lives to Him to 
help execute His plans. There are a great many 
Balaamites, self-willed, who need converting from 
their perverse ways, even if it requires the voice 
of a dumb ass to do it. Why should God make 
known His will to a man, who, He knows before¬ 
hand, does not intend to do it and will not do it? 
That man will never know anything of God. But 
the submissive, willing, obedient child may know 
fully and immediately what the Father’s will is. 

We may find out the will of the Father by be¬ 
ing, “not conformed to this world but trans¬ 
formed by the renewing of your minds that you 
may prove what is that good and acceptable and 
perfect will of God.” The expression in this 
Scripture to “prove” means, to try, to test, to 
approve. To know the will of God the test must 
be made in the spiritual laboratory of a complete 
consecration. One cannot hear the voice of God 
in the midst of the din and confusion of the 
world’s commerce, nor in the swish and the swirl 
of questionable social gaieties. 

If Fra Angelico found it impossible to paint 
angel faces after a night of carousal, how much 
less can the servant of God expect to hear angel 
voices after worldly debauches. If the telescope 


78 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


which is to peer far into the mysteries of the 
heavens must be taken far away from the rum¬ 
bling of the city’s commerce and from the smoky, 
dusty atmosphere of the city’s life, how much 
more must the child of God who is to see clearly 
the will and way of the Father separate himself 
from all the contaminating influences of worldly 
ways and unspiritual associations. 

Again, we may find the will of the Father by 
prayer and supplication. Abraham and Moses 
and Paul and John prayed for a revelation of 
the Divine will and were told exactly what to do. 

Gideon found the will of God by asking for a 
definite sign, and so may we (Judges 6:36tf.). 
His fleece of wool was wet or dry, alternately, ac¬ 
cording to his request, that thus God’s will be 
made known. A bright high school student was 
in doubt as to whether or not God wanted him 
to be a minister of the gospel. He asked for a 
definite sign that he might know and he received 
it that very night. To-day he is happy in his third 
year of college preparation for the lifework of a 
medical missionary. 

When struggling with the question as to 
whether or not I should accept the call of another 
church and change my pastorate, I asked for some 
definite indication, on the following Sunday, as 
to whether my work was finished where I was. 
Without any special effort or planning for it, the 
following Sunday morning sixteen happy souls 
were converted and joined the church. This was 


HIS PRAYER OP PERMISSION 


79 


taken as the index finger of God pointing out the 
path in which to walk, and in a thousand ways 
that has been confirmed as the will of God. 

Sometimes we hear one say, "If God would 
speak audibly out of the heavens and tell me what 
He wants me to do I would not hesitate one mo¬ 
ment to do it.” Well, I believe that it is just as 
possible and as easy now for us to know God’s 
will as it was then for Abraham or Paul to whom 
He spoke directly in audible voice. 

In his life of Henry Drummond, Dr. George 
Adam Smith has inserted the following Eight 
Maxims on how to know God’s will, that he found 
inscribed on the flyleaf of Mr. Drummond’s Bible: 

"First. Pray. 

‘ ‘ Second. Think. 

"Third. Talk to wise people, but do not re¬ 
gard their decisions as final. 

"Fourth. Beware of the bias of your own will, 
but do not be too much afraid of it. (God never 
unnecessarily thwarts a man’s nature and likings, 
but it is a mistake to think that His will is the 
line of the disagreeable.) 

"Fifth. Meantime do the next thing (for do¬ 
ing God’s will in small things is the best prepa¬ 
ration for knowing it in great things). 

"Sixth. When decision and action are neces¬ 
sary go ahead. 

"Seventh. Never reconsider the decision when 
it is finally acted upon. 

"Eighth. You will probably not find out until 
afterwards—long afterwards perhaps—that you 
have been led at all.” 


80 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


In saying “not as I will but as thou wilt” Jesus 
did not find his own will broken, but found it 
strengthened in conscious co-operation with a 
higher and better will. 


“Thus of life's essence 'tis in this blessed home 
To be conformed to the will Divine, 

Whereby our wills one with His will become, 

So that as all from grade to grade forth shine 
Through this realm—thus is it pleasing to all 
As to the king to whose will we incline, 

In His will is our peace. Toward it 

All things haste. It is the sea toward which flow 

What it creates and nature makes." 

—Dante 
Par: 3:77-87. 


We should be able to sing with Tennyson: 


“Our wills are ours, we know not why; 
Our wills are ours to make them Thine." 


Or with Hannah More: 

“Oh, be my will so swallowed up in Thine 
That I may do Thy will in doing mine." 

The greatest, noblest and happiest souls of all 
the earth are those who can truthfully say: 

“Laid on thine altar, 0 my Lord Divine, 

Accept this gift to-day for Jesus' sake: 

I have no jewels to adorn thy shrine, 

No far-famed sacrifice to make; 


HIS PRAYER OF PERMISSION 


81 


But here with my trembling hand I bring 
This will of mine—a thing that seemeth small 
But Thou alone, 0 Lord, canst understand 
How when I yield Thee this, I yield mine all.” 

“Lord, teach us to pray,” as He prayed, 

“Thy will be done.” 





SECTION III: THE PRAYER LIFE 
OF JESUS AS SERVANT 


SEEN IN THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK 

1:35, 7:34, 14:22, 15:34 









SECTION III: THE PRAYER LIFE 
OF JESUS AS SERVANT 

I 

HIS MORNING WATCH 

“And in the morning, rising up a great while 
before day, He went out, and departed into a soli¬ 
tary place, and there prayed .”—Mark 1: 35. 

Mark’s Gospel is characterised by movement 
and action, yet it is punctuated here and there 
with periods of quiet seclusion. In this verse it 
is definitely stated that the Lord’s purpose in 
withdrawing from the crowds was to pray. The 
previous day had been a very busy one. He had 
been engaged in healing the sick until after sun¬ 
down. He had also no doubt had His evening 
prayer, but He could snatch only a few hours 
of sleep for the recuperation of the tired body. 

Early in the morning He must be up and out 
and at His task of praying. The habit of prayer 
demands not only an appropriate place, but an 
appropriate time. Daniel prayed morning, noon 
and night. God said to Moses, ‘ 4 Come up in 
the morning and present thyself to me in the 
top of the mount.” This is the best time to meet 
the Lord. We have a tryst with God in the mom- 

85 


86 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


ing. Moses kept his tryst. “And Moses rose up 
early in the morning and went up.” 

Jesus, who was to be like unto Moses in all 
things, must needs “go up early in the morning 
to the mount of prayer.” He kept His morning 
watch. This is the best hour of the day for 
prayer. What glories must have shone round 
about that place as the Lord at the dawn of the 
morning was seen kneeling in prayer! 

Did ever such a scene in all earth’s events greet 
the rising sun as this vision of the Lord at prayer? 
More than one million four hundred thousand 
times, since Adam walked in the Garden of God, 
with the dews of eternal youth upon his brow, had 
the sun emerged upon the earth, while “the clouds 
in awful tumult flew open the azure sky.” But, 
never before had it smiled with such radiant glow 
upon man in the exercise of his earthly privileges, 
as it did, now, upon the Lord at prayer. 

“The rosy-fingered morn did there disclose, 

His beauty, ruddy as a blooming bride, 

Gilding the marigold, painting the rose, 

With Indian chrysolites his cheeks were dyed.” 

“A great while before day.” What a lesson 
for us poor sleepy-headed, sluggish mortals! 

How it convicts us of sin. How far short we 
fall of the Master’s method in prayer. With most 
of us it is, “Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a 
little folding of the hands to sleep.” So our 


HIS MORNING WATCH 


87 


spiritual poverty comes as one that travaileth and 
spiritual want as an armed man. 

“A great while before day” is easy enough if 
there is a train to catch, or a fishing frolic on, 
or a hunting trip, but “a great while before day” 
for no other purpose than to pray is an experience 
known to far too few. Yet if character is to be 
moulded into a likeness to Jesus the experience 
of prayer “a great while before day” must be 
often repeated. 

Biographies of the greatest saints reveal the 
fact that the i ‘great while before day” experience 
was common to them all. Dr. Adam Clark, the 
great Commentator, was a very early riser. A 
young preacher regretting his inability to follow 
Doctor Clark’s example was anxious to know the 
secret of his success. “Do you pray about it?” 
inquired the youth. “No,” Dr. Clark replied, “I 
get up.” 

We need to keep ever before our faces the wis¬ 
dom of that old saying, “Early to bed, early to 
rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” 
Men who have moved the world have been poor 
sleepers. Napoleon slept only five hours of the 
night. Just enough sleep is very good and essen¬ 
tial, but too much sleep is destructive of all that 
is worth while in life. 

The early morning is the best time for prayer, 
because with the dawning of the new day there 
is the birth of new hopes. There is also fresh- 


88 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


ness, new energy and new powers, and the right 
sort of praying requires all of these. It is good 
that we can pray for renewed strength when ex¬ 
hausted at the evening time; but it is better to 
pray in the fulness of our morning powers that 
God may guide and direct the renewed energies. 
The right sort of prayer requires just the energy 
which at the early morning hour one is capable 
of best exerting. 

Then again the early morning hour is the best 
time for prayer because the Lord’s mercies are 
new every morning. If we come to Him for these 
mercies at the morning hour we can appropriate 
them in their freshness and beauty and glory for 
use throughout the entire day. 

The early morning hour is the best time for 
prayer because God should be put first. He 
should be first in our thoughts, and first in our 
daily considerations. An old southern negro is 
known to have the habit when he awakes in the 
morning of saying, ‘ ‘ Good morning, God. ’ ’ These 
are always his first words. “In the beginning 
God”—in the beginning of the day, in the be¬ 
ginning of business, in the beginning of the home 
—God. , ' 

“Every day is a fresh beginning, 

Every morn is the world made new, 

You who are weary of sorrow and sinning, 

Here is a beautiful hope for you— 

A hope for me and a hope for you. 


HIS MORNING WATCH 


89 


“Every day is a fresh beginning; 

Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain, 

And in spite of old sorrow and older sinning, 
And puzzles forecasted and possible pain, 

Take heart with the day and begin again.” 

But whether we sleep long or little, whether we 
rise early or late, the first thought should be God, 
not the morning paper, not breakfast, not busi¬ 
ness—but God. 

Is it any wonder that there is a cry all over 
the land of depleted spiritual powers and of de¬ 
parted reverence when the first thing of the day 
with most children and young people, and espe¬ 
cially on the Lord’s Day, is the funny pictures of 
the daily paper? And the first thing of the day, 
especially the Lord’s Day, even for grown-ups, is 
the sensational headlines? I do not want to sound 
any dirge of despair, but it must be clear to all 
that if the great sore of humanity’s hurt is ever 
to be healed it must be done by putting God first. 
There is no doubt in the mind of any one who 
thinks that a great many more of God’s people, 
even most all of them, if possible, would bring 
incomparable blessings upon the world if they 
would get up early in the morning , t ‘ a great while 
before day and go out to pray.” 


II 


HIS PRAYERS FOR THE SICK 

“And looking up to heaven, He sighed, and saith 
unto Him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.”— 
Mark 7: 34. 


Disease is of the devil. Health is wealth from 
God. Jesus came to destroy the works of the 
devil (I John 3:8). He therefore attacks the 
works of the devil in the physical, mental and 
spiritual world. In this case His effort is directed 
by prayer toward the destruction of the devil’s 
work of deforming the human body. 

The human body is the epitome of the universe. 
Its physical nature reaches down to all created 
things below it. Its intellectual nature reaches 
out in fellowship with all other intellects. Its 
spiritual nature or immortal being reaches up to 
the heights where dwell the spirits of just men 
made perfect and even God Himself. 

The human body is a sacred thing. Christ de¬ 
sired that it should be kept healthy, wholesome, 
and clean. To this end He prayed and worked. 

One of the greatest arguments to be found any¬ 
where for the sacredness of the human body is in 
I Corinthians 6:12-20. With that profound phi¬ 
losophy, with that clearness of vision and in- 

90 


HIS PRAYERS FOR THE SICK 


91 


cisiveness of logic which characterised the great 
Paul, four arguments are presented in vindication 
of the proposition that the body is sacred to God. 

1. The body should be taken care of because 
God is going to raise it up at the last day (v. 18). 

2. The body should be taken care of because 
it is a member of Christ, and the members of 
Christ should not be made the members of an 
harlot (v. 15). 

3. The body should be taken care of because 
it is the temple of the Holy Ghost which we have 
of God. Surely God’s dwelling place on the earth 
should be kept clean and pure (v. 19). 

4. The body should be taken care of because 
it is the object of Christ’s redeeming grace, hav¬ 
ing been bought with a price (v. 20). 

We should, therefore, glorify God in our bodies, 
which are His. 

Christianity is the only religion which has ever 
taken any account of the human body, and which 
lays it under contribution to accomplish a holy 
end for the glory of God. Since Jesus came and 
prayed for the healing of human bodies and 
reached out His hand and touched them with Di¬ 
vine health-giving power there has been a high 
regard in the world for their sacredness. 

Non-Christian views of the body are expressed 
at one extreme by asceticism and at the other by 
licentiousness. Heathenism says, “Eat, drink 
and be merry, to-morrow ye die.” Christianity 
says, “Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, 


92 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


acceptable unto God.’’ Stoicism is the highest 
expression of heathenism toward the protection 
of the human body, and suicide is stoicism ac¬ 
knowledging itself defeated. Asceticism is Chris¬ 
tianity acknowledging itself defeated. It is an 
effort to achieve by self-will that which God has 
already provided through Christ. It is faith’s 
failure to lay hold upon that which is within its 
reach. 

Satan and Christ are in eternal conflict for the 
possession and control of human bodies: Satan, 
as the author of sin and sickness, seeking to de¬ 
stroy them; Christ, as the author of health and 
happiness, seeking to exalt them. 

That Satan is the author of disease is clearly 
revealed in the Scriptures. 

“ There was a man in the land of Uz, whose 
name was Job; and that man was perfect and up¬ 
right, and one that feared God, and eschewed 
evil” (Job 1), but God for purposes of His own 
sovereign grace let Satan loose on this man Job 
and among the many calamities which Satan 
brought upon him were terrible diseases. 

One day when Jesus was teaching in the syna¬ 
gogue there came with the crowd a bowed and bent 
and broken woman, whom Satan had bound for 
eighteen years, that she might be loosed from this 
bond by the Lord. It is here stated that her dis¬ 
ease was of the devil (Luke 13:16). 

In Acts 10:38 Jesus is pictured as “One who 


HIS PRAYERS FOR THE SICK 


93 


went about doing good and healing all that were 
oppressed of the devil.” 

On the other hand, it is also clearly revealed 
in the Scriptures that healing is of the Lord. In 
Exodus 15: 26 Jehovah makes a gracious promise 
to Israel, “I am the Lord that healeth thee.” 
This promise was made upon condition that Israel 
should diligently hearken unto the voice of the 
Lord God, and do that which is right in His sight, 
and give ear to His commandments and keep his 
statutes. How faithfully this promise of God was 
kept is described in Psalms 105: 37: “He brought 
them forth also with silver and gold; and there 
was not one feeble person among their tribes.” 
What a tremendous power that church would be 
to-day of which it could be said that they were 
so faithful to the voice of God, loyal to his com¬ 
mandments, and true to his statutes that there 
could not be found one feeble person among them. 
Such a church would be clothed with omnipotent 
power in any community and would be the most 
popular institution in any city. 

In Psalms 103:3, the peak of praise is reached 
in the exclamation, “Who forgiveth all thine ini¬ 
quities; who healeth all thy diseases.” 

In Isaiah 53:4 we are told that our healing is 
provided for in the atonement of Christ: “He 
hath borne our griefs and carried our sicknesses 
and with his stripes we are healed.” He poured 
out his soul unto death for the redemption of our 


94 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


souls and bore in His body the sins and diseases 
of our bodies. This Scripture is interpreted in 
Matthew 8:17. Jesus found Peter’s wife’s 
mother sick of a fever, and touching her hand the 
fever left her. “They also brought unto him 
many that were possessed with devils and he cast 
out the spirits and healed all that were sick. ’ ’ All 
of this, it is explained, was done “that it might 
be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the 
prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and 
bare our sicknesses” (Matthew 8:14-17). 

Is it not clear from the Scriptures that disease 
is of the devil and that health is from the Lord; 
that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, 
namely, disease; that the two are in mortal con¬ 
flict the one with the other and that Jesus’ 
method of destroying disease was by prayer for 
and faith in the consequent manifestation of Di¬ 
vine power! 

But was this ministry to continue after His go¬ 
ing away! Did He not perform these miracles 
simply for a testimony of His Divinity that the 
people of that day might believe! Let us see 
what saitli the Scriptures: 

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believ- 
eth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; 
and greater works than these shall he do; be¬ 
cause I go unto my Father” (John 14:12). 

Some of Jesus’ greatest works were works of 
healing. And it has come to pass that wherever 
His name is known there the science of medicine, 


HIS PRAYERS FOR THE SICK 


95 


the blessed ministry of hospitals and sanitation 
reach their highest points of efficiency. But these 
agencies for the alleviation of human suffering 
do not represent the full measure of that healing 
ministry which is to manifest itself among 
Christ’s disciples. Beyond the highest agencies 
of medical science or surgery, when human wis¬ 
dom and skill have reached their limit, there lies 
Divine power which in response to prayer may 
be brought to bear upon deadly disease for its 
Divine healing. 

Mark 16:18 contains the promise to the dis¬ 
ciples that they shall lay hands on the sick and 
they shall recover. This has literally been done 
thousands of times. Romans 8:11 indicates the 
personal agency by which it is to be done. The 
Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His 
Spirit that dwelleth in you. This means, of 
course, the Holy Spirit. 

There is a condition, however, “If this Spirit 
dwells in you.” This raises the question as to 
whether any except saved people can claim the 
ministry of Divine healing. I think they cannot. 
The expression, “quicken your mortal bodies,” 
does not refer to the resurrection of the dead as 
many have been led to believe. But it means to 
make alive our depleted vitalities. 

The climactic text on this subject is, of course, 
James 5:14-15: “Is any sick among you? Let 
him call for the elders of the church; and let 


96 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the 
name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall 
save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; 
and if he have committed sins, they shall be for¬ 
given him.” 

Jesus undoubtedly means by His prayer for the 
sick, not only to accomplish a definite end at that 
time, but also to give an example for all believers 
who should come after Him. 

And it is the testimony of many devout be¬ 
lievers who have earnestly, honestly and conscien¬ 
tiously tested this matter that it is true that God 
heareth prayers in behalf of the sick. 

The pastor of a great church in a Northwestern 
city tells of a woman who had been upon her bed 
a helpless invalid for fifteen years. She heard of 
his faith in prayer for the sick and sent for him. 
He went with the elders of the church and, as the 
Scriptures direct, anointed her with oil, the sym¬ 
bol of the Holy Ghost, and they prayed for her 
healing. That very day she got out of bed and 
went to prayer meeting that night. When the 
prayer meeting group was testifying to the sweet¬ 
est songs they knew, she stood up to say that the 
sweetest music she ever heard was the music of 
“my old clogs on the street pavement to-night 
coming to the house of God, made possible by 
prayer and the ministry of Divine healing after 
fifteen years of absence.” 

Dr. Cortland Myers tells of a mother who was 
sick unto death whose loved ones sent for him. 


97 


HIS PRAYERS FOR THE SICK 

Seeing her desperate condition and realising that 
nothing short of Divine power could bring her 
back to health, he asked that all unbelievers 
should leave the room, allowing only those to re¬ 
main who had absolute confidence in God. They 
would put Him to the final test. They prayed 
and the sick woman arose and sat up and was 
given back to her family as one from the dead. 

I was lecturing to a large group of young peo¬ 
ple in a summer assembly and, speaking upon the 
power of prayer, gave expression to some such 
faith as is herein set dowrn. The president of a 
school arose and asked me if I really believed 
what I was preaching. I replied that if I did not 
believe it I would throw away my Bible and quit 
preaching, because it has always been my pro- 
foundest conviction that the pulpit is no place for 
infidels. This college president then said, “If you 
believe that God will do such things in answer 
to prayer, then I challenge your faith to pray 
now for a great and useful Christian man who is 
a director of this assembly, but who at this mo¬ 
ment the doctors say is dying of blood poison.” 
When a Christian gets into a close place like this 
he had better know his Bible. So the Scripture 
at once came to me: “If two or three of you shall 
agree on anything it shall be done.” I replied 
that if there were one or more others who be¬ 
lieved as I did and who would be willing to put 
God to the test, we would accept the challenge 
and stake the destiny of our souls for time and 


98 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


eternity upon God’s faithfulness to meet it. A 
number of others stood to say that they believed 
it. It was a time which demanded Elijah’s con¬ 
quering faith to stake his all upon the loyalty of 
his Lord and to march straight to the top of Car¬ 
mel. After quoting another promise or two we 
knelt in prayer. The brother who led the prayer 
said something like this: “0 God, our Father, 
Thou knowest that in this community infidels have 
laughed at Thy people and have scoffed at Thy 
Son. But we love Thee and believe in Thee and 
for the honor of Thy Son come to ask that Thou 
shalt do this great thing for us. Touch the dying 
body of our beloved brother with Thy healing 
hand; rebuke the disease this moment and bring 
him here to this meeting sound and well, so that 
our faith in Thee may be vindicated, the power 
of Christ may be justified and the mouth of gain- 
sayers may be stopped.” At the close of this 
prayer, for it was late in the evening, all but a 
few went to their couches for rest. These few 
continued in prayer. 

At the morning service next day I arose to 
speak again. I reminded the audience of the 
prayer of the evening before and of our confident 
expectation that God would answer. “But,” I 
said, “this brother for whom we prayed is not 
here. Has our God forgotten us? Is His mercy 
clean gone forever? How many of you expected 
that this brother for whom we prayed should walk 
in here to-day, sound and well?” The entire 


HIS PRAYERS FOR THE SICK 


99 


group of believers who had stood the night be¬ 
fore stood again to assert their unwavering con¬ 
fidence in God. i ‘ But /’ said I, “our God has for¬ 
gotten us. He has not heard our prayer. The 
answer has not come. We will be the laughing 
stock of all the community.” It was a tense mo¬ 
ment. Elijah himself was never at a more trying 
crisis. Would the God who answers by fire re¬ 
spond to the faith of this band of believers! Wo 
had one more prayer and at the close of that 
prayer, blessed be the God of Elijah, the brother 
came in walking calmly down the aisle and sat 
on the front seat. A shout of praise went up. 
God was glorified and His believing children jus¬ 
tified. 

A pastor’s wife had been in the sanitarium for 
an operation. In her weakened condition just upon 
returning home she contracted typhoid fever. 
There were other complications, the physician 
said. She was literally burning up with fever 
103 and 104 degrees. On the fifth day a blood 
test was made; other physicians were called for 
consultation and they said there was not one 
chance in a thousand for her to live. There was 
only one other source: 16 Standeth God within the 
shadows keeping watch above His own.” The 
case would be put in His hands. The Greatest 
Physician of all would be called in for the final 
consultation. Her father is also a preacher of 
prayer and faith. A telegram was sent to him 
explaining the situation. He got a group together 


100 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


in a distant city and they prayed far into the 
night. The pastor himself went out and for the 
first time spent an entire night in prayer. He 
lifted before the Father’s face the children, the 
church, the kingdom of Christ and the Lord’s 
servant, all of which would be affected detrimen¬ 
tally if she should go at this time. At best he 
knew it was an unselfish prayer; it was a prayer 
for God’s glory and honour. At the dawn of an¬ 
other new day he stole back into the room to ask 
the nurse how the battle was going. She replied 
that the strangest experience of her many years 
of nursing had just come to her. The fever had 
left the patient and she was sleeping as sweetly 
and as quietly as a babe. The pastor stole quietly 
over to the bed where the first streaks of the morn¬ 
ing light were falling upon her face and knelt by 
the bedside to thank God for answered prayer, 
for Divine intervention, for healing power. When 
the physician came that morning he expected to 
find her dead and he found her sitting up per¬ 
fectly well. 

There remains one question more to be an¬ 
swered : If the above be true then should Christian 
people discard physicians and medicine and look 
wholly to the Lord for healing? The answer must 
be an emphatic NO. To do so would be presump¬ 
tuous sin. It would amount to dictating to God 
as to how He should accomplish His purpose. 
If God should choose to use the human agencies 
of physicians and medicines for healing, who am 


HIS PRAYERS FOR THE SICK 


101 


I that I should say, “No, I will not have it that 
way; unless you do it directly I will not have it 
at all.” God uses human agents even in the sal¬ 
vation of souls, for it has pleased Him “by the 
foolishness of preaching to save them that be¬ 
lieve.’ ’ How much more easily may He use hu¬ 
man agents for the saving of human bodies. To 
renounce the use of human agencies in healing 
would be to put ourselves in the same category 
with those who say, “There is no need for preach¬ 
ers, teachers, soul-winners or missionaries, be¬ 
cause God will save by direct operation those 
whom He wishes.” 

But this does not annul the possibility of reach¬ 
ing up to God for Divine healing when all human 
agencies have reached their limit and have done 
all that they know. 


Ill 


HIS PRAYER IN THE SINNER’S PLACE 

“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken 
mef —Mark 15: 34. 

This is the fourth cry of Christ from the cross. 
Three had gone before and there are three to 
follow. This prayer stands in the very centre of 
Christ’s words on the cross. This is the upright 
beam of the cross, while the other six words which 
Jesus uttered hanging there, hang, three on one 
arm and three on the other arm of the cross. 
This cry is the intensest and most heart-rending 
of them all. 

This cry comes out of the darkness which had 
hung over the earth for three mortal hours. At 
the birth of Christ there was an extraordinary 
light which guided the pilgrim feet of the wise 
men to the manger in Bethlehem, but at His cruci¬ 
fixion there is an extraordinary darkness which 
covers the face of the whole earth. Dionysius 
of Heliopolis in Egypt is on record as having said 
at this time, though he knew nothing of Jesus of 
Nazareth: “Either the God of Nature is suffering 
or the machinery of the world is tumbling to 

ruin.” During this three hours of darkness there 

102 


HIS PRAYER IN THE SINNER’S PLACE 103 


was not a word but perfect silence. What silence 
it was! 

But the silence is broken by the loud and pierc¬ 
ing cry from that breaking heart: ‘ 4 My God, my 
God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” And though 
we may not peer into this darkness to seek that 
which God has, thereby, in His wise providence 
concealed yet may we in reverence listen to these 
words of our Lord and learn from them something 
of the awfulness of that passion which He en¬ 
dured when He was 6 ‘made a curse for us.” 

Let it be our prayer that our understanding 
of these words may not be as distorted as was 
the understanding of those who stood by the cross 
and heard the cry. He spoke in the Syriac, “Eloi, 
Eloi,” and the crucifiers made as if they under¬ 
stood Him to say, 4 ‘ Elias. ’’ What strange impres¬ 
sions come to ears that are not opened by the 
Spirit of God and what strange misunderstand¬ 
ings there may be to those who are not enlight¬ 
ened by the same Spirit. Misunderstanding, mis¬ 
interpretation and misapplication of Divine truth 
are all easy and not at all unnatural when one is 
not guided by the Holy Ghost. The prayer should 
ever be, that Divine light from Him may shine 
upon every page and paragraph and sentence and 
word from which truth is being sought. 

This cry of the Christ from the cross was the 
only complaint He ever uttered, if, indeed, this 
is a complaint. He suffered poverty, rejection, 
loneliness without a whine or a whimper. The 


104 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


birds of the air had nests and the foxes had holes, 
but He had not where to lay His head; and yet 
never a word of protest. “He came unto His 
own,” His own people, His own kith and kin, of 
the same blood and bone, but even “His own re¬ 
ceived Him not”; and He never complained. He 
knew beforehand that the disciples would forsake 
Him, and even though Peter protested his loyalty 
Jesus reminded him that three times would he 
deny Him. And now as He comes to the last 
tragic hour there is no one to do Him honour. 
Even the beloved John stands at a great distance 
and Christ is left alone. But He does not com¬ 
plain even about this. He endures the intensest 
physical suffering that was ever forced upon any 
human being, and He was a man, not of coarse 
nature, such as had scant feeling and little ability 
to suffer, but a man of the finest fibre, most keenly 
sensitive to any pain. And yet at this suffering 
He opens not His mouth. Like a sheep at the 
slaughter and a lamb before its shearer, He was 
dumb. But now that His Father’s face is turned 
away from Him it is more than He can bear. 
This one time of all the agonies of earth’s suffer¬ 
ings He cries out in utter desolation of soul, 
“Why hast Thou forsaken me?” 

It is as if He had said: “I can understand 
how the Pharisees and Sadducees would have 
nothing to do with me and would utterly reject 
me; I can even understand how the disciples 
should forsake me, but that Thou, my Father and 


HIS PRAYER IN THE SINNER’S PLACE 105 

my God, should forsake me, I cannot understand. 
Why hast Thou forsaken me?” It seems that the 
promises of God, the character of God, the faith¬ 
fulness of God, would have guaranteed Him sup¬ 
port at this time, but not so. “Why hast Thou 
forsaken me?” 

Again, the emphasis may have been upon the 
word “Me.” “I can understand why Thou didst 
forsake King Saul of old; his disloyalty and dis¬ 
obedience deserved that he should be forsaken of 
God. I can understand how Thou didst forsake, 
temporarily, at least, our father David, because 
his sins deserved such condemnation. But why 
Thou hast forsaken Me is beyond my understand¬ 
ing. I have sought all my life to do nothing but 
Thy will. Did I not hear Thy approving voice 
at the baptismal waters, 4 Thou art my beloved 
Son, in Thee I am well pleased’? Was not this 
approval repeated at the Shekinah glory of the 
transfiguration, and did I not speak truly when 
I said, I have finished the work Thou gavest me 
to do? Why, then, should I be forsaken of Thee? 
Why cannot I now see the smiling face of Thine 
approval and hear the blessed words, ‘I am well 
pleased’? Why is it that I am left utterly and 
absolutely alone at this time? Of all the experi¬ 
ences of my life this one is the time when I most 
need help and comfort. At the temptation in the 
wilderness an angel came and graciously minis¬ 
tered to my needs. When in trouble of soul only 
yesterday a voice from heaven comforted me and 


106 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


when in the agony of Gethsemane last night an 
angel appeared to strengthen me; hut now there 
is neither the one nor the other—why hast Thou 
forsaken me, now?” 

Why this absolute loneliness and desolateness 
when “one flash of heavenly light, one word 
spoken by God, might scatter all misery”? 

If Jesus Himself must shriek, “why?” then, 
how may we expect to discover the mystery of 
it? “We feel with trembling hearts that we are 
here confronted with the central mystery in the 
life of God and in the story of this universe.” 
It is no other than the mystery of sin and sin’s 
consequences and God’s method of dealing with 
sin. 

God cannot look upon sin with any degree of 
allowance. He cannot condone sin for one mo¬ 
ment. Sin is the exact opposite of everything 
that God is. There can be no common ground be¬ 
tween them. There can be no neutral zone. There 
can be absolutely no compromise. God will not 
have fellowship with sin for one moment and now 
that Jesus has become sin for us God must turn 
away, even from Him. 

How Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin is 
one of the great mysteries, and yet it must be 
so because it is declared so in the Word. Sin 
was on Him but not in Him. There was laid 
upon Him the iniquity of us all. He bore in His 
body our sins on the tree. And God turned away 
from Him only when He stood in the sinner’s 


HIS PRAYER IN THE SINNER’S PLACE 107 


place. “Though God loved Him as a Son He 
frowns upon Him as a surety / 9 

Physical suffering was not enough to pay the 
penalty of sin. The wages of sin is death and 
through death is a separation from God. This 
is the second death. Jesus must bear in that hor¬ 
rible hour in His own consciousness the utmost 
of sin’s penalty, namely, separation from God. 
Nothing can be more awful in experience than a 
soul forsaken of God. How deeply, then, this 
most sensitive of all souls must have felt that 
poignancy and bitter anguish of aloneness when 
God turned His back upon Him and went away. 

And this is the answer to the cry, “Why hast 
Thou forsaken me?”: “Thou art Holy, 0 Thou 
that inhabitest the praises of Israel.” 




SECTION IY: THE PRAYER LIFE 
OF JESUS AS MAN 


SEEN JN THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE- 

3: 21, 6: 12, 9: 29, 23: 34, 22:39 


SECTION IV: THE PRAYER LIFE 
OF JESUS AS MAN 

I 

HIS PRAYER AND PLAIN DUTY 

“Jesus also being baptised, and praying, the 
heaven was opened. And the Holy Ghost descended 
in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him, and a 
voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my 
beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased .”—Luke 
3:21-22. 

There is no record of Jesns having prayed prior 
to His baptism. He probably did, but it is not 
stated in the Gospels. Neither is there any record 
of His having prayed after His resurrection. 
Baptism prefigured His resurrection. The resur¬ 
rection filled full all righteousness. Baptism was 
the beginning of His public ministry; the resur¬ 
rection was its end. 

Baptism was a plain duty which the only Be¬ 
gotten Son Himself could not, and would not, 
escape. John would have forbidden Him, saying, 
“I have need to be baptised of Thee,” but Jesus 
replied, 4 ‘ Thus it becometh us to fulfil all 
righteousness.” Baptism is the answer of a good 
conscience toward God. It is the performance of 

the Christian’s first plain duty. 

in 


112 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


4 ‘And being baptised Jesus prayed.” I would 
not have it said that He could not pray before His 
obedience to this ordinance. I would not say that 
no Christian can pray until he has been baptised. 
But if this fact, that the first mention of the 
prayer life of the Lord being connected with the 
first public expression of obedience to God’s will 
and conformity to God’s ordinances, means any¬ 
thing at all, it means that prayer will be powerful 
only in proportion as this order is followed; 
namely, obedience first, prayer afterwards. If it 
cannot be said of Jesus Himself that He prayed 
until He had first performed, how much less can 
we expect any answer to our prayers if we are 
living in known disobedience to a definite duty. 

Is not this moreover the whole tenor of Scrip¬ 
tural revelation? “And whatsoever we ask we 
receive of Him because we keep His command¬ 
ments and do those things that are pleasing in 
His sight.” Would it not be well to search our 
own disobedient lives for the cause of our unan¬ 
swered prayers? If prayer is still unanswered it 
is manifestly not God’s fault. Seeking our own 
wilful ways we build a barricade about us, over 
which the prayer chariot cannot pass, and we 
therefore fail to get the things from God for 
which we ask. 

But prayer is more than getting things from 
God. Prayer is a holy, heavenly fellowship, the 
sweetness and glory of which are denied those who 
disobey. 


HIS PRAYER AND PLAIN DUTY 113 

When Jesus had walked those sixty dusty miles 
under the scorching rays of the Syrian sun 
and had yielded Himself to the fulfilment of all 
righteousness, being baptised at the hands of John 
in the Jordan, it was then that the heaven was 
opened; the Holy Ghost descended; and the ap¬ 
proving voice of God was heard. 

What He saw through the windows of the open 
heaven we know not. But visions seraphic, more 
glorious than ever greeted the eyes of man, must 
have been His. He no doubt saw Elisha's horse¬ 
men and chariots. He saw the angelic host which 
would be sent to minister to Him at a moment's 
notice. He saw the spirits of just men made 
perfect, His holy ancestors, and Moses and Elijah. 
He saw, above all, the smiling face of His Father. 
Baptism plus prayer became His Peniel for there 
He saw God face to face. Oh, what strength and 
courage this must have given Him for the temp¬ 
tations and trials and tasks which were just ahead 
of Him. Men live not by the things they possess 
but by their visions. 4 ‘Where there is no vision 
the people perish." The horizon of Christ's 
vision was bounded only by the Eternities, hence 

the greatness of His life. 

Spiritual visions are the most potent factors 
and forces in life; not banks, nor bonds, nor 
armies, nor navies; but spiritual realities consti¬ 
tute man's mightiest supporters. Jesus has pro¬ 
jected His personality and power across the cen¬ 
turies because of the open heaven and the spiritual 


114 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


vision. But back of that vision was prayer and 
back of His prayer was obedience. 0 that men 
would learn to obey God! 

Following the prayer, which followed obedience 
to plain duty, came also the descent of the Holy 
Ghost. The Holy Spirit is the second Person of 
the Divine Trinity. He was second in the crea¬ 
tion when He brooded over the chaotic universe. 
He is second in the re-creation of man when He 
convicts of sin, righteousness and judgment. He 
now descends upon the Lord of Glory. Jesus has 
taken upon Himself the likeness of man. He has 
clothed Himself with human flesh and must needs 
be panoplied with the power of a personality 
above man. He needs the Holy Ghost. It is by 
the power of the Holy Ghost that He is to per¬ 
form His miracles. It is by the power of the 
Holy Ghost that He is to speak His heaven-born 
messages. It is by the power of the Holy Ghost 
that He will be sustained on the cross, and by 
the Holy Ghost He will rise from the dead. But 
back of the descent of the Holy Ghost was His 
prayer and back of His prayer was obedience to 
plain duty. 

“Being baptised and praying,’’ there is also 
heard the approving voice, ‘ ‘ Thou art my beloved 
Son; in Thee I am well pleased.” No child of 
God can be well-pleasing to the Father who is liv¬ 
ing in known disobedience to the Father’s will. 

This is the first, but not to be the last, time 
that Jesus was to hear this approving word. He 


HIS PRAYER AND PLAIN DUTY 


115 


heard it only when He had given Himself in beau¬ 
tiful humility to do the good pleasure of His 
Father in heaven. 

Can any Christian imagine a satisfaction more 
gratifying than to have the approval of the 
Heavenly Father upon the life and conduct? But 
remember that it cannot be had apart from obedi¬ 
ence to His will. 

I recall most vividly an experience in my Ken¬ 
tucky pastorate which illustrates the necessity of 
duty well performed before prayer can be a real 
experience. It was at the close of a busy day of 
pastoral duties when a poor unfortunate widow 
came to the pastor’s home to ask for assistance. 
The pastor’s wife assured her that she and her 
children would be given attention on the following 
day. But the following day brought another 
round of numberless demands upon the pastor’s 
time, and the poor woman was forgotten. The 
second morning afterwards I went into the study 
as usual for my morning devotions. At that time 
I was going through the Bible on my knees. It 
is a wonderful journey, that of going through the 
Bible on your knees! With my Bible open be¬ 
fore me in the chair, I knelt for the morning read¬ 
ing and prayer, but the pages of the Book seemed 
blurred, notwithstanding I was in that great book 
of Colossians, where the supremacy and all-suffi¬ 
ciency of Christ are so wonderfully portrayed. 
But contrary to previous experiences, the reading 
yielded no sweetness of Divine revelation, and 


116 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


there was no gushing fountain of living waters; 
there was no bread of life. It was no more than 
any other book of history or philosophy. What 
was the difficulty? I tried to pray, but prayer had 
no meaning. The heavens above were as brass 
and the earth beneath as iron, and prayer did not 
seem to go out of the room. ‘ 4 Lord, put thy finger 
upon the difficulty / 7 I cried; and immediately 
there arose before me the spectral vision of that 
poor widow and her suffering children. God 
seemed to say, “ Plain duty unperformed is the 
difficulty.” I arose at once and went out into the 
biting winds of the January morning and onto 
the icy streets of the wintry day, to find my way 
into the little side street where lay the hungry 
woman and shivering children on a bed of straw 
in the corner of a mere shack. I called the coal 
man and made a warm fire. I called the grocery- 
man and had food sent. I called some of the good 
women of the church and had clothing brought. 
When these unfortunate ones had been clothed 
and fed and made comfortable I found my way 
back to my study and to the open Bible. The 
Bible became a new Book. Great fountains of 
Living Water gushed forth like an artesian well. 
The Holy Spirit seemed personally nearer and 
real, and praying became a new experience. 

Duty is a hard word these days. It is an un¬ 
welcome guest. “Duty, stern daughter of the 
voice of God,” but nevertheless duty unper¬ 
formed is destructive of prayer’s power, while 


HIS PRAYER AND PLAIN DUTY 


117 


duty well done is a powerful promoter of prevail¬ 
ing prayer. 

The relationship between plain duty and prayer 
is most vital. Let us not forget it. The best 
performers are the best prayers. “Have you 
done what I told you to do?” asks the good Father 
of the begging child. “If not, then what right 
have you to expect me to respond to your re¬ 
quest?” Let not that disobedient child think he 
shall receive anything of God. But let the cheer¬ 
fully obedient child know that he can get what¬ 
ever he wishes from his Heavenly Father. 


0 


II 




HIS PRAYER AND PLAIN LIVING 

“And He withdrew Himself into the wilderness, 
and prayed .”—Luke 5:16. 

“And it came to pass in those days, that He went 
out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night 
in prayer to God .”—Luke 6:12. 


Some ten times it is stated in the Gospels that 
Jesus withdrew Himself from the crowds in order 
to pray. We may be able to pray in the midst of 
the throngs, but certainly not so well. It seems 
to have been a fixed habit with the Saviour to 


“Go abroad 

Upon the paths of nature, and when all 
Its voices whisper, and its silent things 
Are breathing the deep beauty of the world, 
Kneel at its simple altar, and the God 
Who hath the living waters shall be there.” 


It is that manifest desire of the Lord for the 
simple life which here contains such a great lesson 
for us. It was the simplicity of His living which 
made possible His prayer life. It is “in contem¬ 
plation of created things by steps we may ascend 
to God.” 


118 


HIS PRAYER AND PLAIN LIVING 119 


It is a serious question whether luxuries and 
comforts and conveniences are a curse or a bless¬ 
ing. Great inventions may produce more physi¬ 
cal satisfaction, but do' they increase spiritual 
powers? 

Plain food and simple, neat and'modest cloth¬ 
ing are no doubt more conducive to spiritual life 
than high and tasty delicacies filled with condi¬ 
ments, and frivolous and foolish fashions gaudily 
and artificially worn. 

The closer one lives to nature and nature’s God, 
the more meaningful will be his prayer life. Jesus 
may have performed great miracles in Capernaum 
and taught great lessons in Jerusalem, but the 
power by which He did these things must be 
gained out in the quiet places in “the starry shade 
of dim and solitary loneliness where he learned 
the language of another world.” 

So must we, if we are to be clothed with spir¬ 
itual power, come often into contact with “Na¬ 
ture’s self which is the breath of God, or His 
pure work by miracles revealed.” It is in such 
times and places that doubts and fears disappear 
and we feel ourselves being clothed with the 
Divine Omnipotence. 

“This sacred shade and solitude, What is it? 

? Tis the felt presence of Deity, 

Few are the faults we flatter when alone, 

Vice sinks in her allurements., is ungilt, 

And looks like other objects, black by night. 

By night an atheist half believes in God.” 


120 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


The whir of automobiles, the glare of electric 
lights, the clang of street cars, the gaudiness of 
tinselled artificialities do not very materially aid 
spiritual living. 

Many a spiritual-minded country Christian has 
soon found his feet slipping upon removal to the 
city. The voice that was heard so fervently in 
public prayer is now silenced. The prayer meet¬ 
ing night has given way to the country club or 
theatre. The little Sunday school has been for¬ 
gotten, and the daily paper takes the place of the 
Bible. Pity Tis, ’tis true, but true it is never¬ 
theless. 

Those who are forced by one necessity or an¬ 
other to live in the city, need, ever and anon, to 
hie themselves away to the quiet peace of some 
secluded spot. 

If we are to live in the glorious triumphs of 
spirit over matter, we must constantly put the 
knife to the throat and guard with unremitting 
care against flippant social customs and godless 
costumes. 

Those whose minds are constantly consumed 
with the thought, “What shall we eat, what shall 
we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed V 9 — 
are not likely to grow great Christian characters. 
Those who exalt outward adornment above in¬ 
ward culture are not likely to grow great in grace. 

Those who spend hour after hour in adorning 
this poor body of the flesh upon which the worms 
of the dust will soon feed, and devote seconds 


HIS PRAYER AND PLAIN LIVING 121 


only, if any time at all, to tHe preparation of the 
soul for public worship, are the most unwise of 
all earth’s deluded creatures. Such persons can¬ 
not pray. They do not know the A-B-C of the 
prayer life. They are living only for the pass¬ 
ing day with no thought of eternity. They are 
grovelling in the dust of earth when they might 
be revelling in the purity of God’s heavenlies; 
they are crawling when they might be flying. 

But are we not slaves of custom bound by the 
tyrannies of a dead past more terrible than any 
other that ever gripped the life of man? Mrs. 
Harding can wear only blue, and so all women of 
the land at once demand Harding blue. The 
Prince of Wales has his coat cut in a certain 
fashion, and forthwith all the tailors of the realm 
are overrun with demands for the one pattern. 
Men must suffocate, even at church, as well as 
elsewhere, on the hottest summer day, with at 
least three coverings on their bodies because cus¬ 
tom demands it. And women must shiver on the 
coldest winter day with thin sleeves and low necks 
because Dame Fashion sitting upon her imperial 
throne orders it so. 

How can one be prayerful under such circum¬ 
stances? And what is more, if we think about it 
even for a moment, what must be the effect pro¬ 
duced upon the spiritual life of men by the fash¬ 
ions of the opposite sex when dressing seems spe¬ 
cially designed to display the physical form, cut 
low at one end and high at the other—how can a 


122 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


life of prayer be produced? “Bewildered man 
beholds the parade of ‘Vanity Fair’ on the main 
streets, of both city and town, with its deluge of 
fads and fancies, frills and fripperies, and passes 
out in a crescendo of wonder and dismay.” 

Of course, there is no need for one to vex his 
righteous soul over the fashions of the day, be¬ 
cause he may be assured that they shall change 
over night. The point is that if this be the con¬ 
suming passion of one’s life and being, his prayer 
life is likely to be proportionately decreased. 

If Jesus found it necessary to go out in the quiet 
place to pray, how much more necessary is it for 
us weaker mortals. 


Ill 


HIS PRAYER AND TRANSFIGURATION 

GLORY 

“And it came to pass about an eight days after 
these sayings, He took Peter and John and James, 
and went up into a mountain to pray. 

“And as He prayed, the fashion of His counte¬ 
nance was altered, and His raiment was white and 
glistering .”—Luke 9: 28-29. 


Prayer has a tremendously transforming 
power. If it has become a fixed habit of life, 
the glory of it will work out into the face and 
features, character and conduct. The prayer life 
of Jesus, which was a great part of His whole 
life, reached one of its greatest climaxes in 
the transfiguration. It was while He was pray¬ 
ing that the “ fashion of his countenance was 
altered.’’ 

This glory of God that shone in the face of 
Jesus Christ was not a pantomime. It was not 
the shining of a light from the outside, but the 
shining forth of that which was on the inside. It 
was not a tacked-on glory, but an out-working 
splendour. 

Here is a great illustration of the reflex in¬ 
fluence of prayer. Jesus had fed His mind and 

123 


124 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


heart and life upon fellowship with the Father 
and upon spiritual food until they now reveal 
themselves in His person. 

This is as tragically true of things that are bad 
as of things that are good. One becomes like the 
things he feeds upon. Down in Central Park, 
New York, I was watching the beasts and the birds 
at feeding time. There were two birds side by 
side in separate cages which made a great impres¬ 
sion upon me. One of them was the vulture. He 
was feeding upon the filth of carrion. His 
feathers were ragged, dirty and filthy. His head 
was crusty and rusty and repulsive. His feet and 
beak were filthy with the food upon which he was 
feasting. I turned away from it with revulsion. 
In the other cage was a bird of paradise. He 
was delicately picking out of the finely winnowed 
grain only the soundest seeds. He was extraordi¬ 
narily careful of his food. His body was beauti¬ 
ful. His face was delightfully pleasing to look 
upon. His feathers were as delicate as the finest 
maiden-hair fern. The fine food upon which he 
had fed all of his life had worked itself out into 
his personal appearance. The contrast between 
the two birds was startling. It is a great law of 
nature and grace that one becomes like that upon 
which he feeds. 

Herein is the great value of private or family 
Bible reading and prayers just before retiring at 
night. Psychology teaches us that the sub-con¬ 
scious mind never sleeps. It is really more active 


PRAYER AND TRANSFIGURATION GLORY 125 


when we are asleep than when we are awake. It 
certainly is more influential in the production of 
character during our sleeping hours than our 
wakeful ones because when we are awake it is con¬ 
sumed with outside activities. Many of us can 
recall the experience of having solved some mathe¬ 
matical problem while asleep, over which we had 
pondered many wakeful hours with poor success. 

If one goes to bed with the beautiful thoughts 
of the Bible in his mind and with the conscious 
presence of God in his soul after prayer, he is 
bound to experience in life the glorious outwork¬ 
ing of such powers. This is why the old-time fam¬ 
ily altar, with Bible reading and prayers before 
retiring, such as is so beautifully described in 
Burns’ “The Cotter’s Saturday Night” was such 
a tremendous force in the production of great 
men and women: 

“The priest-like father reads the sacred page, 

How Abram was the friend of God on high; 

Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage 
With Amalek’s ungracious progeny; 

Or how the royal Bard did groaning lie 
Beneath the stroke of heaven’s avenging ire; 

Or Job’s pathetic plaint and wailing cry; 

Or rapt Isaiah’s wild, seraphic fire; 

Or other holy Seers that tune the sacred lyre. 

• •••••• 

“Then kneeling down, to Heaven’s Eternal King, 

The saint, the father, and the husband prays; 

Hope ‘springs exulting on triumphant wing,’ 

That thus they all shall meet in future days; 


126 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


There ever bask in uncreated rays, 

No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear, 

Together hymning their Creator’s praise, 

In such society, yet still more dear; 

While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere.” 

Inx;ontrast to this sort of influence upon char¬ 
acter, what will the harvest be when present-day 
influences of the funny paper, the dance halls and 
the picture shows have worked themselves out 
fully into the life and character of the people? 
Think of the children and young people of the 
nation whose last impressions before retiring at 
night are the blood and thunder, crime and cruelty, 
licentiousness and lasciviousness, dirt and devil¬ 
ishness of the average commercialised moving pic¬ 
ture show! From eight to ten hours of sleep the 
mind is feeding itself and filling the life blood and 
nerve force of the person with these destructive 
influences. 

It is a great law of both nature and grace, and 
its consequences cannot possibly be averted, that 
whatever one feeds the body, the mind, the soul 
upon will manifest itself in the face and features, 
character and conduct. “A man must be a mas¬ 
terpiece within before he can be a masterpiece 
without.’’ 4 ‘The show of their countenance doth 
witness against them.” 

The story of Rembrandt at two periods of his 
life is a striking illustration of this principle, 
working in two directions. As a youth he is de¬ 
scribed as “gloriously handsome.” “The lamps 


PRAYER AND TRANSFIGURATION GLORY 127 


of love burn in his eyes; he radiates beauty and 
exhales strength; but having been untrue to him¬ 
self he lost faith in others. The penalty of dis¬ 
honesty and impurity is to believe that every one 
else is equally dishonest and equally impure.’’ 
But in middle age Rembrandt is described as 
“shrinking, with an old rag around his throat, 
weakness in his chin, the mark of the beast upon 
his brow, the eyes heavy and dull.” 

What is the explanation of the two kinds of men 
found in the one? Only this: In his youth he 
lived by high ideals, noble impulses and lofty 
ambitions. In his strength he gave way to the 
powers of passion and lust and licentiousness and 
greed. It is a great law and it works. 

The reaction of a life of prayer upon one’s char¬ 
acter is not the only possibility that prayer has, 
but it is one of the great probabilities of prayer. 
Of course, there are other tremendous values of 
prayer, but this one is not to be despised. Neither 
is it, on the other hand, the only value which 
prayer has. 

There is also another law at work here. It is 
the law of influence by association. Jesus had 
lived and walked and talked and “fellowshipped” 
with the Heavenly Father until it radiated in 
His countenance and even His garments became 
“white and glistering.” 

It is not only the law of inward feeling working 
itself out, but it is also the great law of associa¬ 
tion at work. The teacher and his pupil live to- 


128 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


gether and think together and study together, 
until the pupil is the reproduction of his master. 
“Like priest like people’’ is a well-known adage 
setting out the results of pastoral influence. The 
son is like his father, first, because he has his 
father’s nature, but also just as much so because 
he lives with his father. This law is especially 
noticeable among husbands and wives who have 
been happily married for a long time. 

I am thinking now of a happy old couple in 
Tennessee, who have walked life’s way together, 
for around half a century. They struggled to¬ 
gether in poverty during the devastating days im¬ 
mediately following the Civil War; they planned 
and dreamed and hoped together through those 
youthful times when they shared each other’s 
strength in the prime of manhood and woman¬ 
hood; they bore each other’s burdens, shared each 
other’s joys, enjoyed each other’s pleasures and 
worshipped together at the family altar and in 
the house of God; they mutually bore the re¬ 
sponsibilities of rearing and training their chil¬ 
dren. They lived together and walked together 
and sorrowed together and rejoiced together along 
life’s pathway these fifty years. Now they sit in 
the evening shadows, but their love has grown 
stronger and purer and sweeter with each pass¬ 
ing day. They are nearing the end of life’s little 
race and it is more noticeable than ever that they 
look alike, talk alike, think alike and act alike. 


PRAYER AND TRANSFIGURATION GLORY 129 


The influence of each upon the other has woven 
itself into a composite character of the two. 

Just like this, will the Divine influence of the 
Heavenly Father weave itself into the woof and 
fibre of the deepest being of that individual who 
lives in constant fellowship with Him. We are 
transformed by beholding. 

Watch the faces of old people and it is very 
easy to discover those who have been prayerful. 
The giddy, godless unworshipful worldly life is 
seen in the hard, disappointed, ugly faces of old 
age. The prayerful, consecrated Christian life 
manifests itself in the sweet, sunshiny, beautiful 
faces of the old man or the old woman. 

There is a transfiguration glory in prayer for 
every one who, like Jesus, avails himself of its 
opportunities. 


IV 


HIS PRAYER FOR FORGIVENESS 

“Father, forgive them; for they know not what 
they do.” —Luke 23: 34. 


While He was hanging upon the cross Jesus 
spoke seven marvelous words. The words of this 
text are the first of these seven sayings. This 
first word was probably spoken before the cross 
was raised up and dropped into its socket in the 
rock. It may have been that just as they were 
bending over Him driving the nails into His hands 
and while His breath was hot in their faces that 
He said, “Father, forgive them; for they know 
not what they do.” 

This prayer is the Lord’s great intercessory 
prayer for sinners, just as John 17 is His inter¬ 
cessory prayer for saints. This is the fulfilment 
of the last verses of that great prophecy in 
Isaiah 53: “ Therefore will I divide him a portion 
with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with 
the strong; because he hath poured out his soul 
unto death: and he was numbered with the trans¬ 
gressors ; and he bare the sin of many and made 
intercession for the transgressors.” 

As we think of this intercessory prayer, His 

130 


HIS PRAYER FOR FORGIVENESS 131 


prayer for the vilest of all sinners who were cruci¬ 
fying Him, there comes to mind also the great 
intercessory prayer of the Apostle Paul. He was 
despised and maltreated and hounded to his death 
by his own Jewish people, and yet he said, 4 ‘My 
heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that 
they might be saved.” On another occasion he 
went farther and said, “I could wish that myself 
were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my 
kinsmen according to the flesh.” 

We are likewise reminded of Deacon Stephen, 
the first martyr, who “being full of the Holy 
Spirit looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw 
the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right 
hand of God,” upon whom the wicked persecutors 
ran with one accord, stopping their ears and ston¬ 
ing him to death. But good Stephen in the Spirit 
of his Lord and Master, “calling upon God, and 
saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, kneeled 
down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not 
this sin to their charge.” 

The example of intercessory prayer for sinners 
which the Lord presented on the cross began to 
bear fruit early in Stephen, Paul and others. In 
view of these cases it is passing strange that there 
should be those among us, calling themselves 
Christians, who claim that there is no authority 
or justification for praying for sinners. 

Many can recall that old-fashioned evangelistic 
institution known as the “mourners’ bench” 
which was the reserved seat at church services for 


132 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


such sinners as would occupy it as an indication 
of their desire for the prayers of God’s people. 
The mourners’ bench has not entirely departed 
from among us, but it is rapidly being succeeded 
by other methods of discovering those who have 
sufficient interest in their spiritual welfare to ask 
an interest in the prayers of God’s people. How~- 
ever, there is no doubt that these things can be 
overdone. The most apparent danger in such 
requests for prayers for sinners is that the place 
of this prayer or the prayer itself may come be¬ 
tween the sinner and the Saviour. If it is going 
to lead him to look to that prayer for his salva¬ 
tion, instead of to the Saviour, then it is a danger, 
because all the prayers in the universe cannot 
save a single soul. 

The meaning of prayer for the sinner must not 
be misunderstood, either. The purpose of it is 
not to change the mind of God, nor to secure His 
willingness to save sinners. His mind is already 
made up on that question. He 4 ‘is not willing 
that any should perish, but that all should come to 
repentance.” Propitiation has already been pro¬ 
vided and it is adequate for the meeting of every 
case. The only purpose of prayer for sinners is 
that God shall pour out the blessing already pro¬ 
vided, and that He shall in the day of His power 
make the sinner walling to accept that which has 
been done in his behalf through Christ. 

If we then are to follow the example of the Lord 
and of those first great followers of His, we must 


HIS PRAYER FOR FORGIVENESS 133 


unceasingly pray for sinners. God forbid that 
we should sin against them by ceasing to pray for 

them. 

The spirit of this prayer of our Lord is wonder¬ 
ful. Here He is being done to death by the most 
heartless and cruel mob that ever maliciously mal¬ 
treated any human being. He had done no evil, 
neither had He harmed any one. He had meant 
only to serve the highest interests of all men. 
They, however, for no other reason than religious 
prejudice, malice and envy, seize Him, go through 
a mock trial and subject Him to the most dis¬ 
honourable and disgraceful execution known in 
the world. Notwithstanding all of this, in great 
generosity and magnanimity of soul He lifts up 
His tender plea to the Father to forgive them. 

Is this not a demonstration of the Divine Spirit 
which dwelt in that frail human body? It is so 
far beyond and above what mere man would do 
that we cannot account for it on any other ground 
than that of essential Deity. 

“Let a great prince die for a friend, and the 
world could never say enough about it; soon such 
a story of sacrifice would glow on the canvas, 
gleam in the white moonlight on the marble, and 
live on the page of history; but here is the sinless 
Lover of souls dying for His enemies, He is pray¬ 
ing for them. Jesus begins to use His own cross 
by saving those who nailed Him to it.” 

The story is told of Le Clerc, a great critic, who 
one day was walking the streets of Paris and acci- 


134 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


dentally trod on the foot of a young man. Im¬ 
mediately the young man raised his hand and 
struck Le Clerc in the face, to learn afterwards 
that he was blind. So it is sometimes when you 
hold a harsh opinion of a man and are angry with 
him, whereas if you would take the trouble to 
inquire you would find some defect that entitles 
that man to as much compassion as a blind man 
if he trod on your foot in the street. 

To forgive one’s friends is human;-to forgive 
one’s enemies is divine. To pray for our loved 
ones is natural; to pray for those who despite- 
fully use us is graceful, that is to say, full of 
Divine Grace. 

4 ‘Father, forgive them.” Only God can forgive 
sins. Man can forgive injuries done to him if 
he have grace enough; but no man, no matter 
how good or great, can forgive the sins which an¬ 
other man committed against God. This is as 
unnatural and impossible as for one man to for¬ 
give the wrong done by another man to a third 
party. 

Forgiveness of sins is God’s greatest blessing. 
For the saint His forgiveness is offered on the 
condition of confession. “If we confess our sins 
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and 
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” For the 
sinner His forgiveness is conditioned upon the 
sinner’s acceptance of the work of Christ on his 
behalf. 

Forgiveness with God also means forgetting. 


HIS PRAYER FOR FORGIVENESS 135 

‘‘I will cover your sin as a dark cloud; I will re¬ 
member them against you no more forever.” To 
Him they are buried in the depths of the sea. 
“He will turn again, he will have compassion 
upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou 
wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” 
(Micah 7:19). 

Visitors to the city of Odessa have witnessed an 
interesting scene on the first day of the Jewish 
year. Great numbers of the large Jewish popu¬ 
lation on this day wend their way toward the sea 
for the purpose of throwing the last year’s sins 
into it, in order that they may enter the new year 
with a clean soul. They stand around in groups 
closely packed together in some places, looking 
into the water, reciting prayers or reading 
psalms. The groups are formed for the most 
part of listeners, with a man, and in a very few 
instances a woman—an old woman with spectacles 
on her thoroughly Jewish nose—reading to them. 
Some of the people turn their empty pockets in¬ 
side out and shake them toward the sea, while 
others merely make a sign of throwing something 
into the water. This, to them, is the symbol of 
God’s fulfilment of that promise to ancient Israel, 
that He will “cast all their sins into the depths of 
the sea.” 

The plea which Jesus makes for the forgiveness 
of these persecutors is that “they know not what 
they do.” Paul referred to this in II Corinthians 
where he expressed his determination to know 


136 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


nothing among these Corinthians save Christ and 
Him crucified. His speech was not with enticing 
words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of 
the Spirit and of power. The wisdom of God and 
the wisdom of man are quite different. The wis¬ 
dom of God is in a mystery, even the mystery of 
the cross “ which none of the princes of this world 
knew, for had they known it they would not have 
crucified the Lord of Glory.” 

These crucifiers were ignorant of the origin and 
character of Him Whom they were crucifying. 
They looked upon Him as some upstart from the 
north country that needed to be put out of the 
way, not knowing that He was indeed the Son of 
God. 

They were ignorant of what this crucifixion 
would mean throughout the world, for its redemp¬ 
tion and for its uplift. They were ignorant of 
the hidden mystery of Divine Grace and provi¬ 
dence and predestination and sovereign purpose, 
the mystery into which the angels desired to look, 
but could not, which lay concealed in this act. 

‘ 4 Father, forgive them; for they know not what 
they do.” 


V 


JESUS AT PRAYER IN GETHSEMANE 

“And He came out, and went, as He was wont, 
to the mount of Olives; and His disciples also fol¬ 
lowed Him. 

And when He was at the place, He said unto 
them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. 

And He was withdrawn from them about a 
stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed. 

Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this 
cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but Thine 
be done, 

And there appeared an angel unto Iiim, from 
heaven, strengthening Him. 

And being in an agony He prayed more ear¬ 
nestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops 
of blood falling down to the ground. 

And when He rose up from prayer, and was come 
to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sor¬ 
row. 

And He said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise 
and pray, lest ye enter into temptation .”—Luke 
22 : 39-46. 

Only a little while ago Jesus was surrounded 
by the shouting throngs who were crying their 
hosannas and vying with one another to do Him 
honour. Now He stands alone. Not even the 
closest and most intimate disciple is near enough 
to help. 


137 


138 THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 

✓ 

Yesterday He was entertained with that gra¬ 
cious hospitality which He so often enjoyed in 
the home of the Bethany sisters. To-night He is 
not far from that home, for it is just over on the 
other side of the hill, but they who had so often 
been helped by Him do not now come to His help. 

The crowds gradually dwindle away from Him. 
There is the shouting throng in the streets, then 
the curious crowds in the temple; then the hun¬ 
dred or so who were with Him when He started 
toward the Garden; then the eleven who arrived 
with Him at the gate; then the three who go with 
Him on the inside, and even these must fall by 
the wayside while He goes a little farther, where, 
in depressing solitude and loneliness, He treads 
the winepress of the wrath of God. 

It was in a garden, the Garden of Eden, that 
man had lost his battle with Satan. It shall be 
won back in another garden, the Garden of Geth- 
semane, by the second Adam. Gardens have had 
much to do with human history, but no other 
garden ever meant so much as these two. 

In this Garden Jesus is to spend His last night 
on earth. Where and how would you spend your 
last night on the earth! Would not much of it 
be spent in prayer! Canon Liddon made a great 
sermon on the subject “The First Five Minutes 
after Death/ ’ Dr. Frederick F. Shannon in a 
remarkable book of interesting sermons, “The 
Breath in the Winds,’’ prefers to preach on 
“Life’s Last Thirty Minutes.” With whom 


JESUS AT PRAYER IN GETHSEMANE 139 

would you like to spend life’s last thirty minutes? 
Jesus would spend this last night with His Father 
in the Garden. Of course, He takes along Peter, 
John and James, but intimate as they are with 
Him, being that sacred inner circle, even they 
cannot intrude into the sacredness of these last 
hours. 

We see here the lonely Christ. There is noth¬ 
ing more pathetic in all of His life than His pro¬ 
found loneliness. There were but few who un¬ 
derstood even a little about Him, and none who 
could fully sympathise with Him. Jesus was ‘ 4 the 
most utterly solitary man that ever lived.” 
“ There were none to praise and very few to 
love.” Genius is always solitary. Who could 
enter into any fellowship with this most solitary 
and most sublime Personality of all the centuries? 
He towered like a giant of the forest, so far above 
all others that none could keep Him company. 

“The little hills rejoice together on every side, 
but far above their smiling companionship the 
Alpine peak lifts itself into the cold air and 
though it be visited all night by troops of stars 
it is lonely amid the silence of the snow.” 

Oh, what pangs of unrequited love that lonely 
and loving heart must have felt as it yearned for 
the solace of an answering heart! Just over the 
hill was the home where Jesus had often found 
sheltering love and there were those whose sym¬ 
pathy and understanding would have meant mil¬ 
lions to Him now, but He must stand alone. 


140 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


But there is an exquisite pain which may 
amount to an inward joy over the thought of being 
able to bear life’s burdens alone. And because of 
the loneliness of the Christ He is therefore en¬ 
abled to become our Great High Priest, who can 
be touched with all the feelings of our infirmities, 
tempted in all points like as we are, yet without 
sin. His loneliness makes it possible for Him to 
enter into fullest sympathy with those of us who 
may be lonely. If ever we are misunderstood or 
misjudged or misrepresented, if ever we are 
shunned or shied from we may find comfort in 
remembering that Christ also walked this way 
and is in fullest sympathy with us. If “our 
heart’s burden of love is rejected, if empty be¬ 
cause those who filled them are gone,” we may 
find surcease from our sorrow in fellowship with 
Him Who long ago learned what this meant. If 
we find ourselves lost in the wilderness, but dis¬ 
cover a bent twig or a blazed tree, we may know 
that other feet have walked that way and found 
their way out, and so may we, too. 

Jesus in the Garden is also the humble Christ . 
He kneeled down. He prostrated Himself. He 
fell upon His face in devout reverence. Humility 
is a great grace. This humility of Christ’s was 
“Love’s bent knee.” It is easy to kneel, to bow, 
to bend, to become humble, before one for whom 
love’s deepest devotion and mightiest passion and 
holiest respect and devoutest reverence are felt. 


JESUS AT PRAYER IN GETIISEMANE 141 


If our feeling for God even approximated the 
emotions which some human relationships stir we 
would oftener find ourselves prostrated before 

Him. 

In this Garden we see the Christ in conflict . It 
is that conflict which inevitably occurs when an 
acid comes in contact with a base. The acid of 
His spotless character now touches the base of 
Satan’s degeneracy. It is the last satanic on¬ 
slaught. In this Garden Christ met the final as¬ 
sault of hell. But the fierce winds which were 
hurled in such frantic fury into His face swept 
unbroken over His soul. It was the most terrible 
storm that ever swept over the earth. The black¬ 
ness of the pit is let loose. The horrors of hell 
take hold upon His soul. The most horrible 
wolves of the pit are let loose upon Him. “Pain 
in its acutest sting and shame in its most over¬ 
whelming brutality are to be His.” 

From now until the expiring cry upon the cross 
nothing remains for Him on earth but the torture 
of physical pain and the poignancy of mental an¬ 
guish. “All that His frail form could tolerate; all 
that human infamy could heap upon Him was now 
to be His lot.” 

What is His recourse ? What could He do ? He 
must brace Himself by prayer. And, oh, how 
glorious was that “paroxysm of prayer”! Let 
us not intrude too closely into this scene. Let us 
linger with Peter, John and James, a stone’s 


142 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


throw away. This incident is shrouded in a halo 
and mystery into which no human footstep may 
penetrate. 

In the Garden we see the sorrowful Christ . 
Luke says, “He began to be sorrowful,’’ and 
Mark uses the word “appalled.” Until this time 
He had been the most joyful man the world ever 
saw. He was a handsome man, the chiefest 
among ten thousand, and the one altogether 
lovely. There were none of the marks of pride 
or passion or sin upon Him which deform men. 
Until this moment His face had shone with a glory 
which came from the consciousness of the right¬ 
ness of His life with God. Joys unspeakable had 
been His portion, but now “He began to be sor¬ 
rowful.” Now begins the fulfilment of that de¬ 
scriptive prophecy, “He was a man of sorrows 
and acquainted with grief.” There is to be no 
more sunshine for Him, and the only joy He is to 
have now is the joy He is to have in anticipation 
of the coming crown which He will win by endur¬ 
ing the cross and despising the shame. “For the 
joy that was set before Him” He endured all. 

There must have been a sad, far-away look in 
His eyes as He turned them up to the Father’s 
face in this Gethsemane prayer. There must have 
been a shadow on His countenance darker than 
any that ever came upon the face of man. Oh, 
what hard heart can look upon that sorrowful 
man, untouched and unmoved? 

In this Gethsemane prayer we see the crying 


JESUS AT PRAYER IN GETHSEMANE 143 


Christ . 4 4 Who in the days of His flesh, when He 
had offered up prayers and supplications with 
strong crying and tears unto Him that was able 
to save Him from death, and was heard in that 
He feared” (Hebrews 5:7). 

There is no crime in crying. Washington 
Irving wrote: 4 ‘There is a sacredness in tears. 
They are not the mark of weakness but of power. 
They speak more eloquently than ten thousand 
tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelm¬ 
ing grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable 
love.” The tears of Jesus were “sweet tears, 
awful language, eloquent of uneventful affliction 
far too big.” His tears were the “safety valves 
of the heart when too much pressure was laid on.” 

Jesus had rejoiced with them that rejoice and 
had wept with them that weep. When His friend 
Lazarus lay in the grave and Martha and Mary 
were in tears He joined His tears with theirs in 
sympathetic understanding. How comforting to 
know that He can cry with us when we cry. A 
little child came home from school and said to her 
mother: “I just love Marjorie more than any¬ 
body.” “And why do you love her the most?” 
her mother asked. The child replied, “Because 
she cries with me when I cry.” If we will just 
remember that Jesus cries with us whenever we 
cry there may be consolation for us that we have 
never before discovered. He is a sympathetic 
High Priest. 

Here in the Garden “He filled the silent night 


144 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


with His crying and watered the cold earth with 
His tears more precious than the dews of Hermon 
or any moisture next to His own blood had ever 
fell on God’s earth since the creation.” 

This crying was also accompanied with bloody 
sweat which beggars all description. This is 
Luke’s medical language, drops or clots of blood. 
Aristotle mentions bloody sweat caused from the 
blood being in a poor condition. Theophrastus 
mentions a physician who compared a species of 
sweat to blood. The torture of Christ’s Spirit, 
the agony of His soul, the anguish of His mind, 
the intensity of His body, the burden of His heart, 
were all so inexpressibly terrible that every vein 
and blood vessel swelled to the bursting point and 
the pores of his skin oozed with crimson moisture. 

Oh, what passionate praying was this! How 
can we ever learn to pray as He prayed? We cry 
“Lord, teach us to pray,” and yet who will bear 
such a burden of prayer as this? 

How terribly this prayer rebukes our own cold 
and heartless formalities; our mere making of 
speeches to God; our repetition of meaningless 
phrases, our saying of words when the heart and 
the spirit and the soul are not entering in! 

“Lord, Teach Us to Pray!” 


SECTION V: THE PRAYER LIFE OF 
JESUS AS GOD’S SON 

SEEN IN THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN- 

11 : 41 , 17 : 1-28 





SECTION V: THE PRAYER LIFE OF 
JESUS AS GOD’S SON 

i 

HIS PRAYER AT THE GRAVE 


“Then they took away the stone from the place 
where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up His 
eyes, and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast 
heard me. 

And I knew that Thou hearest me always; but 
because of the people which stand by I said it, 
that they may believe that Thou hast sent me.”— 
John 11:41-42 


The records tell of three times that Jesus had 
stood in the presence of death. Each time He 
reached out His hand to conquer it. But this 
time at the grave of Lazarus was the most touch¬ 
ing scene of them all. Lazarus had been a de¬ 
voted friend whom Jesus loved very tenderly. 
Jesus had many times enjoyed the hospitality of 
that home in Bethany. But now Lazarus is dead. 

Jesus was far away when that illness, which was 

unto death, came upon Lazarus. There was an 

apparent strangeness in the conduct of Jesus at 

this time. When the message reached Him of His 

friend’s serious illness He did not fly at once to 

147 


148 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


the bedside of the sick and to the comfort of the 
distressed sisters, as might have been expected. 
He lingered two days longer in the country where 
He was. This, however, is the way of that Divine 
Benevolence which sees the end from the begin¬ 
ning. Jesus knew what He would do, and this 
delay was not caused by indifference, but by the 
desire to demonstrate to the disciples and to all 
the people His Divine power. Furthermore, 
Jesus had come to destroy the works of the devil, 
and the devil’s worst work is death. So Jesus 
would give the enemy all the advantage. He 
would give him the underhand hold in this mortal 
conflict and w r ould then throw him. So when He 
does arrive at the home of Mary and Martha He 
finds that His friend has been in the grave four 
days. Many friends came to Martha and Mary 
to comfort them concerning their brother, but no 
one meant so much to these mourning sisters as 
did Jesus. When He came the cry burst from 
Martha’s heart, “If Thou hadst been here my 
brother had not died, but I know that even now 
whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give 
it Thee.” 

Oh, that word, “If Thou hadst been here!” If 
Jesus were always present things would be dif¬ 
ferent. “If Thou hadst been here” things would 
be different in the home, in the business, in the 
state. The presence of Jesus changes everything. 

In His words of comfort He gives expression to 


149 


HIS PRAYER AT THE GRAVE 

some of the profoundest thoughts of all His teach¬ 
ing* But with these we are not concerned in this 
study. 

u Where have you laid him?” It must have 
been a deeply touching scene: ‘ 1 the outpouring of 
her sorrow; the absoluteness of her faith; the 
mute appeal of her tears.” She answered,‘ 4 Lord, 
come and see.” What heart will remain unmoved 
at such a scene as this? Jesus was strong and 
brave and manly. He was called “the Lion of 
the tribe of Judah.” He had lashed the money 
changers out of His Father’s house. He had de¬ 
fied the Pharisees and Sadducees. And yet His 
stout heart could not bear up under this scene. 
“Jesus wept.” 

Not only did He weep with those that wept, but 
“Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself com- 
eth to the grave.” That word groaning is a strong 
word. It occurs only three times in the Gospels. 
In every case it expresses a charge of remon¬ 
strance accompanied with a feeling of displeasure. 
Whether this groaning in the Spirit at the grave 
of Lazarus was meant as a rebuke to His own 
shrinking and as a summons to the decisive con¬ 
flict with death; or whether it was meant to check 
that natural inclination to put forth the fulness 
of Divine energy at once; or whether it was 
an indignant condemnation of the hypocritical 
mourning of the Jews or a righteous wrath 
at the temporary triumph of Satan, we do not 


150 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


know. But what we do know is that it was an 
expression of deep feeling, of indignant protest, 
of righteous wrath. 

4 'What caused this indignation? Cannot we 
fancy how there rose up, as in pale, spectral pro¬ 
cession before His vision, the whole long series 
of human sorrows and losses of which one was 
visible there before Him? He saw, in the one in¬ 
dividual case, the whole race of man. He saw 
the whole mass represented there, the ocean in the 
drop, and He looked beyond the fact and linked 
it with its cause. And there rose before Him the 
reality of man’s desolation through sin and the 
thought that all this misery, loss, pain, parting, 
death, was a contradiction of the Divine purpose, 
and an interruption of God’s order, and that it 
had all been pulled down upon men’s desperate 
heads by their own evil and their own folly. 
There rose in His heart the anger which is part 
of the perfectness of humanity when it looks upon 
sorrow linked by adamantine chains with sin.” 

What a tremendously arresting scene is this. 
Heartbroken sisters, distressed disciples, weeping 
friends, curious onlookers, the closed grave. And 
in the midst of it all stands the Son of man and 
the Son of God. He is the sole source of help 
for every one. Without Him they can do noth¬ 
ing. What will He do? What can He do? Once 
more prayer must come to His aid. It is His sole 
resource. 

"And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, 


HIS PRAYER AT THE GRAVE 


151 


I thank Thee.” Even at the grave He will sing 
no dirge of despair. At the grave His prayer 
shall be one of thanksgiving. At the grave He will 
praise God. 

There are many things for which to he thank¬ 
ful, even at the grave. If it is the grave of a 
child we can thank God that He sent it at all to 
bless the home like some fragrant flower that 
blooms only for a while and then vanishes; if it 
is an old person we can thank God for having 
spared the life as long as He did. In whatever 
case, instead of complaining and rebelling for the 
going away of the loved ones God should be 
thanked for having sent them at all. 

But what is it that Jesus is thankful for at the 
grave of Lazarus? “I thank Thee that Thou hast 
heard me.” Back in Perea, when the news of 
Lazarus’ sickness reached Jesus, He had prayed,^ 
and in that prayer His Father no doubt had given 
Him the assurance that the thing should be done 
even as He had requested. That God hears and 
answers prayer is an occasion for the devoutest 
thanks and loftiest praise. Oh, how good is that 
God whose ear is always open to the cry of His 
child and who really does answer prayer. Jacob 
discovered this at Jabbok and it made a new man 
of him. He was ever afterwards to be known 
as Israel, a prince who had prevailed. Moses dis¬ 
covered at the burning bush that God answers 
prayer and it gave him strength to save a nation 
of slaves. Elijah found at Cherith that his God 


152 THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 

could answer prayer, and with that assurance he 
walked to the top of Carmel with the conscious 
tread of a conquerer. He laughed at the prophets 
of Baal whose god could not hear and answer, 
and then put them to rout by calling upon his 
God who answered by fire. All of these and many 
thousands since then can join Jesus in saying, “I 
thank Thee that Thou hast heard me.” 

But this prayer of Jesus takes another great 
step forward and says, “Thou hearest me al¬ 
ways.” He could say, “Thou hearest me al¬ 
ways,” because in His prayer life there were none 
of those hindrances to prayer which are specified 
in the Scriptures as the explanation for so much 
of our own unanswered prayer. 

Selfisliness is the first and greatest hindrance. 
“Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, 
that ye may spend it in your own pleasures” 
(James 4:3). 

Sin is a great hindrance to prayer. “Behold, 
the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot 
save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear. 
But your iniquities have separated between you 
and your God, and your sins have hid his face 
from you, that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:1-2). 

Iniquity in the heart stands in the way of many 
a prayer. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the 
Lord will not hear me” (Psalms 66:18). 

Idol worshippers need not expect to receive 
anything of God. “Son of man, these men have 


HIS PRAYER AT THE GRAVE 153 

set up their idols in their heart, and put the 
stumbling block of their iniquity before their face: 
should I be enquired of at all by them?” (Ezekiel 
14:3). An idol worshipper is one who puts some¬ 
body else first and God second. 

Enmity in the heart will block the path of 
prayer. “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if 
he have ought against any: that your Father also 
which is in heaven may forgive you your tres¬ 
passes” (Mark 11:25). 

Bitterness and unkindness in social relation¬ 
ships are barriers to prayer. “Likewise, ye hus¬ 
bands, dwell with them according to knowledge, 
giving honour unto the wife as unto the weaker 
vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace 
of life; that your prayers be not hindered” (I 
Peter 3:7). 

Refusing to hear and respond to the cry of the 
poor will stop the ears of God to our cry. “Whoso 
stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also 
shall cry himself, but shall not be heard” (Prov¬ 
erbs 21:13). 

But Jesus had neither selfishness nor sin, nor 
iniquity nor idols, nor enmity nor unkindness, nor 
lack of charity in His heart or life. Therefore, He 
could say, “Thou hearest me always.” 

Furthermore, those Bible characteristics of pre¬ 
vailing prayer were always present in the prayer 
life of our Lord. 

He could pray always according to God’s will . 


154 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


“And this is the confidence that we have in Him, 
that, if we ask any thing according to His will, 
He heareth ns” (I John 5:14). 

His prayers were unceasingly persistent . 
“And He spake a parable unto them to this end, 
that men ought always to pray and not to faint” 
(Luke 18:1). 

His prayers were in deepest truth and sincerity . 
“The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon 
Him, to all that call upon Him in truth” (Psalms 
145:18). 

His life was beautifully obedient to the law of 
God. “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of 
Him, because we keep His commandments, and do 
those things that are pleasing in His sight” 
(I John 3 : 22). 

Therefore, because He prayed conformably, per¬ 
sistently, sincerely and obediently, He could say, 
“Thou hearest me always.” His was the prayer 
of the righteous man which availeth much in its 
working (James 5:16). 

“Thou hast heard me;” “Thou hearest me 
always.” What wonderful words! How much 
more wonderful that they are true! Oh, to be able 
to pray as Jesus prayed! always to be heard, and 
always to be answered. 

But some of our prayers are so selfish and so 
foolish and so contradictory that they cannot be 
answered. God cannot answer both parties when 
two persons are praying for exactly opposite 
things. He may not answer either. But He will 


HIS PRAYER AT THE GRAVE 


155 


answer the one who prays according to His will, 
for the best. 

In this way we may pray as Jesus did and 
then be able to say, “always Thou hearest me.” 
God does hear and answer every real prayer. 


II 


HIS INTERCESSORY PRAYER 

John 17 

In approaching this prayer of our Lord one 
feels somewhat as Moses did when he stood at 
the burning hush. This is holy ground and one 
should put off his shoes to stand here. In this 
prayer we enter the very holy of holies with the 
Saviour and see Him solemnly present Himself 
before the Father as the High Priest of His peo¬ 
ple. It is a Divinely sacred scene. 

This prayer is the conclusion of the Lord’s last 
moments with His disciples. It is the end of the 
discourse which begins in chapter fourteen and 
deals with the profoundest moral subjects. This 
prayer is the climax of the greatest discourse ever 
delivered by man or God. We cannot hope to 
fathom its depths nor scale its heights, nor to 
measure its length and breadth. We can only 
walk around it and look at it for a few practical 
lessons. 

We could not agree at all with such declara¬ 
tions as that of Bulchneider which is approved by 
the German rationalist, Strauss, who speaks of 
this prayer as being *‘ frigid, dogmatic, metaphys- 

156 



HIS INTERCESSORY PRAYER 157 

ical.” Our deepest spiritual instincts recoil from 
such expressions. 

It were easier to agree with Benge, who speaks 
of this prayer as “the most simple in words and 
the most profound in sense’’; or to agree with 
Luther, who says, “Plain and simple as it sounds, 
it is so deep and rich and broad that no man can 
fathom it.” 

Alexander McLaren expresses the feeling of us 
all, that “we may well despair of doing justice 
to the deep thoughts of this prayer which volumes 
would not exhaust.” 

However, here we are at this place in the prayer 
life of our Lord and we will take a little excursion 
into it, not refusing whatever blessing there may 
be in it simply because we cannot get it all. 

There might be great interest in a study of 
the theology of this prayer. There are two times 
when one’s theology is always sound: when he 
prays, and when he writes hymns. 

Some of the greatest and best hymns have been 
written by the unsoundest theologians, because 
when the heart is borne upward into such fellow¬ 
ship with God as to enable one to sing “Nearer 
my God to Thee,” his Unitarianism is forgotten 
and left behind. Thus it is also in prayer. That 
theology which is born in the deepest devotion of 
a prayerful spirit can be depended upon. It is 
one of the strange and paradoxical coincidences 
of present-day upheavals in the theological world, 
that one of the best books ever written on the 


158 THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 

subject of prayer should have for its foundation 
the prayers of those great saints of the fifteenth, 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and that the 
writer of this book should now be turning around 
to kick over the very theology which came out of 
those prayers. 

The theology of this prayer of Jesus brings out 
such doctrines as His deity (v. 1); His pre-ex T 
istence (v. 5); the plenary inspiration of the 
Scriptures (v. 8); and God's electing grace 
( v - 2 ). 

A further preliminary consideration of this 
prayer should include its construction. It moves 
in rhythmic cadences and in harmonic transitions 
from beginning to end. It is built up, thought 
upon thought, until it rises, pyramid-like, to its 
peak. It is definitely outlined and well organised 
as to its matter. Jesus begins with Himself 
(vs. 1-5), moves on to the eleven apostles (vs. 6- 
19), and on out to all the disciples w T ho should ever 
come afterwards (vs. 20-24). 

This raises the question as to whether it was a 
prepared prayer. How far should prayers be ex¬ 
temporaneous and how far should they be pre¬ 
pared? There are two extremes, both of which 
have their evils. Prayers which are found in 
printed volumes may have been real and vital 
when they burst fresh from the hearts that pre¬ 
pared them, but after many repetitions they are 
likely to become a mere repeating of words and 
no prayer at all. This is what Jesus condemned 


HIS INTERCESSORY PRAYER 159 

in the Pharisees who thought that they would be 
heard for their persistent mumblings of certain 
phrases. On the other hand, for one to undertake 
to lead a public prayer without previous prepa¬ 
ration or thought, is likely to result in a jumbling 
of words and phrases long since worn threadbare 
and in petitioning for a multitude of things, of 
which the one praying happens to think as he 
goes along. Herein is the danger of calling upon 
some one to lead in public prayer without pre¬ 
vious notice. Both of these extremes have their 
dangers. 

We certainly must say that if the example of 
the Lord is to be followed, His ministers will 
give careful thought beforehand to their public 
prayers. Whether they write these prayers out 
or not is another matter. Each public Sunday 
morning and evening prayer should have a great 
deal of thought and preparation. Why so much 
preparation on the sermon and so little on the 
prayer ? I have been looking recently over a book 
of Spurgeon’s prayers, and one thing that greatly 
impressed me was the definiteness of each prayer. 
One is for help from on High. Another is a 
word of thanks. Another is a prayer of praise 
for the wonders of Calvary. Another is a prayer 
for holiness; another for liberty. Another is a 
prayer to be like Christ. One is a prayer for 
more grace, and another a prayer for deliverance 
from evil, etc., etc. 

All of these prayers would indicate much 


160 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


thought beforehand as to what should be said. 

A further consideration of this prayer would 
lead us to look into its language. Its words and 
phrases are unusually simple and dignified. 
There is nothing of the ornate, nothing of the 
oratorical in this prayer. The sentences are short 
and the words are simple. Moreover, the lan¬ 
guage is direct. It goes to the heart of the matter 
in mind. There is no superfluous redundancy. 

THE PRAYER AND HIMSELF 

In verses 1 to 5 Jesus is talking to the Father 
about Himself. 

“The hour is come.” That hour toward which 
four thousand years of human history had been 
looking with anxious longing; the hour when the 
hope of all nations was to burst forth in full 
fruition; the hour of human destiny: it is now 
come. .All the light of the past streaming for¬ 
ward focuses on this hour and all the light of the 
future streaming backward focuses at the same 
point and the two meet. In this spotlight of the 
centuries stands Jesus Christ lifting up His voice 
in prayer. 

He speaks of Himself as the Glorified Son. 
“Glorify Thy Son.” 

He stands here as the Authoritative Son. 
“Thou hast given Him power over all flesh.” He 
is the Son of Supreme authority, for all power 
in heaven and in earth have been given to Him. 


HIS INTERCESSORY PRAYER 


161 


He is Lord over all. Not man’s conscience, nor 
the church, nor yet the Bible, are authoritative 
apart from the personality and power of the 
Christ. He alone constitutes the court of final 
appeal in matters religious. 

He is the Life-giving Son. “That he should 
give Eternal life to as many as Thou hast given 
Him.” In Him was Life and this Life was the 
Light of man. He is the source of all life, physi¬ 
cal, intellectual and spiritual. Apart from Him 
there is nothing but death and decay. He came 
that man might have Life and have it more abun¬ 
dantly. Wherever He lives, life flourishes in ex¬ 
uberant freshness. Individual life, family life, 
social life, business life—all are sweetened and 
glorified if He dwells there. Without Plim life 
is a drudgery, it is a dying. Through Him is 
eternal life. Eternal life and immortality are 
two quite different things. Even the lost soul is 
immortal. What eternal gloom and desolation it 
will suffer in its separation from God. Only the 
saved man has eternal life and that life is in 
Jesus Christ, God’s Son. 

He is the God-Glorifying Son. “I have glori¬ 
fied Thee on the earth . 9 ’ His mission to this world 
was to unveil the face of His Father that all 
humanity might see Him and love Him. “No 
man hath seen God at any time. The only be¬ 
gotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, 
He hath declared Him,” literally, “led Him 
forth,” that is, “into full revelation.” Apart 



162 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


from Christ God is conceived of as some horrible 
monster, some terrible tyrant, some self-avenging 
monarch, to be feared and dreaded and escaped, 
if possible. The gruesome and repulsive idols 
of the heathen are only expressive of the ideas 
of God which men have apart from Christ. How¬ 
ever, in Christ the love and grace and tenderness 
of a Father are revealed and in Christ all may 
draw near to God, and God draws near to them. 
Jesus is the answer of humanity’s long cry for 
God. In the dim and distant past Job cries out, 
44 Oh, that I knew where I might find Him! ’ ’ This 
cry is echoed by Philip, 4 4 Show us the Father and 
it sufficeth us.” And all these cries are answered 
by Him who said: 44 He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father.” No man has seen God or known 
God who has not found Him in Jesus Christ. No 
man can fully believe in God apart from Christ. 
He is the God-Glorifying Son. 

He is also the Pre-existent Son. 4 4 And now, 
O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self 
with the glory which I had with Thee before the 
world was.” 44 Before Abraham was I am.” He 
is the Pre-existent, Self-existent, Future-existent 
Son of God, the Logos; without beginning of days 
or ending of years, Who was and is and is to be. 
The so-called 44 Lives of Christ” which we read 
are only the records of that small span snatched 
out of the eternities during which He journeyed 
here on the earth in the garment of human flesh. 


HIS INTERCESSORY PRAYER 


163 


A real “Life of Christ’’ must go far back beyond 
Bethlehem and stretch forward beyond Joseph’s 
tomb. 

In these brief verses we have compacted to¬ 
gether an all-comprehensive view of Jesus the 
Saviour as He understood Himself to be and as 
expressed in the first part of this great interces¬ 
sory prayer. 

HIS PRAYER FOR THE ELEVEN 

In verses 6-19 we have an ill-inclusive prayer 
in behalf of the Eleven. The first part of it is 
an expression of the Lord’s joy which He has in 
them, verses 6-8. 

In His expression of joy which He found in 
their behalf there are four things revealed as the 
occasion for this pleasure. 

First, they were the Father’s love-gift to Him. 
“Thine they were and Thou gavest them to me.” 
“I have manifested Thy name unto the men which 
Thou gavest me out of the world.” These are 
the first fruits of the Father’s promise, that the 
coming of His Son into the world should not be 
in vain. They are the foretaste of that fulness 
of glory which should come to Him in a redeemed 
earth. His heart is inexpressibly full of joy at 
this sign of the Father’s favour. 

Second, He found joy in their obedience, for: 
“They have kept Thy word.” Obedient chil- 


164 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


dren are an inexpressible pleasure. Disobedience 
brings grief and disappointment. 

Third, they were informed disciples. “Now 
they have known that all things whatsoever Thou 
hast given me are of Thee.” Jesus has no pleas¬ 
ure in ignorance. Knowledge is life, as well as 
power. To know God is Eternal Life. The best 
informed disciples bring the greatest joy to the 
Saviour’s heart. Those who are careful students 
of His word and students of His work are a great 
delight. In His prayer He remembered to thank 
God that these Eleven were not ignorant but were 
informed. 

Fourth, they were believing disciples. 4 ‘And 
they have believed that Thou didst send me.” 
Jesus finds joy, not in the doubtings and ques¬ 
tionings of His followers, but in the confident 
trustfulness of them. How natural is this occa¬ 
sion for a prayer of praise. To be trusted, to 
be believed in, is our greatest encouragement 
and inspiration. Thus the Saviour found great 
satisfaction that these whom the Father had given 
Him believed. 

In verses 9-19 He makes four earnest petitions 
for these Eleven. He first petitions that they may 
be kept through the name of the Father : “Keep 
through Thine own name those whom Thou hast 
given me.” While He was with them His per¬ 
sonal presence sustained and supported them. 
Now that He is going away His petition is that 


165 


HIS INTERCESSORY PRAYER 

the strong right hand of His Father may still 
be upon these loved disciples, to keep them in 
unity and harmony and faithfulness. 

In the second petition He prays that “they 
might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” Jesus 
came to bring laughter and sunshine and music 
to the heart and home and life of all who would 
receive Him. He Himself was filled with the ut¬ 
most joy. The darkness of the cross even could 
not dispel that inner satisfaction which came from 
the consciousness of doing God’s will. Is it not 
written, “For the joy that was set before Him 
endured the cross, despising the shame of it, and 
is set down at the right hand of the throne of 
God.” Now, His desire is that nothing shall de¬ 
stroy the joy of these disciples. How well this 
prayer was answered is indicated by such flashes 
of light from the Divine revelation of their future 
experiences as this: “They rejoiced that they 
were counted worthy to suffer for Christ.” 

It is a badly mistaken view of Christ and His 
holy religion that His purpose is to take the 
“sun” out of “Sunday.” It is sin that brings 
sorrow and not righteousness. Hilarity in tem¬ 
porary indulgence may abide for a moment, but 
sorrow cometh in the morning. The life that 
Christ offers is full of joy because it rests upon 
the only foundation that can produce permanent 
satisfaction. The godless, worldly man who 
thinks that he is having a good time need not pity 


166 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


the Christian whose life is higher and deeper and 
fuller and richer and sweeter than any other life 
known to mortal man. The trouble with many is 
that they have just enough of Christ not to enjoy 
the world and just enough of the world not to 
enjoy Christ. Jesus wants and prays that all may 
be joyful, but He knows that the joy can come 
only from the fulness of a righteous life. 

The third petition is that they may be delivered 
from evil, “I pray not that Thou shalt take them 
out of the world but that Thou shouldst keep them 
from evil.” There is no particular value in a 
cloistered religion. The disciples are in the w T orld 
but not of the world. He did not pray that they 
should be delivered from temptation, but that they 
should be strong enough to resist temptation. He 
does not pray that they may have no sorrow, but 
that they may have joy enough to overcome their 
sorrow. He does not pray that they may not suf¬ 
fer, but that they may be able to endure suffering 
patiently. 

Two men who had been converted from a life 
of sin and shame were giving their testimony. 
One of them said: “I was a debauched drunkard, 
but Christ saved me and from that moment I have 
never wanted a drop of whiskey.’’ The other 
man said, “I, too, was a drunkard and Christ 
saved me, but there has never been a moment 
since my conversion that my flesh did not cry 
out for drink, and yet I have never touched a 
drop since my salvation, because Christ has al- 


i 


HIS INTERCESSORY PRAYER 167 

ways given me sufficient strength to overcome the 
temptation. ’’ A great preacher remarked upon 
hearing these testimonies: “This last is the great¬ 
est of all witnesses for Christ.” It is not the man 
who is not tempted that is a hero, but the one 
who, though tempted and tried, yet triumphs 
through riches of grace. He is God’s greatest 
credential in the earth. 

The Saviour’s prayer for these disciples is that 
they may be holy: “Sanctify them through thy 
truth; and for their sakes I sanctify myself that 
they also might be sanctified through the truth.” 

We need not be afraid of sanctification. Jesus 
prayed for it. Jesus desired that the disciples 
might have it; in fact, He Himself became our 
righteousness and sanctification. A sanctified 
person or thing is set apart for a holy purpose. 
These Eleven had been chosen and set apart for 
their high calling of God in Christ Jesus. But is 
there not something more in the act of sanctifica¬ 
tion than the once and for all and definite setting 
apart of one to a Divine purpose? Jesus said, 
“For their sakes I sanctify myself.” By prayer, 
by daily consecration, by self-renunciation, by a 
sacred self-abnegation for their sakes He sancti¬ 
fied Himself. This is the highest of all appeals; 
“for their sakes.” 

“And as time went on, there was nothing in 
that Great Prayer the Apostles remembered more 
in their daily ministry than just this: 'For their 
sakes, I sanctify myself. ’ They remembered these 


168 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


words every day, and they saw something of the 
unfathomable and inexhaustible depth of these 
words, as they worked out their own salvation, 
and the salvation of their people, in a daily life 
of increasing holiness and intercessory prayer. 
And those ministers of our own day are the true 
successors of the Eleven, who most closely imitate 
them in their life of sanctification; and that with 
a view of intercessory prayer. He alone deserves 
to be called a minister of Christ and of His church, 
who, on the day of His ordination looks around 
on his people and says, ‘For their sakes I sanctify 
myself’; and more and more says it with every 
returning Sabbath morning. For their sakes, He 
will say, I dedicate and devote myself. For their 
sakes I keep myself at peace with God. I seek 
more and more to please God for their sakes. To 
please Him and to please them. For their sakes 
I sanctify myself. And what an incomparable 
sanctification that is, and what a shipwreck it is 
for any minister to miss it! What a complex, 
what a spiritual, what an endless, what an inces¬ 
sant sanctification! In every new sermon theye 
is some new sanctification for a preacher and for 
his people. First and best for him; and then, 
after him, for them. Sanctify them through Thy 
truth; Thy word is truth.’’ 

And what is here said about Christ sanctifying 
Himself for the sake of the disciples and His 
prayer that they may be sanctified for the sake 
of others and for the sanctification of the minis¬ 
ter, in behalf of the people, may be said also with 
as great force on behalf of the sanctification of 
Sunday-school teachers for the sake of their pu- 


HIS INTERCESSORY PRAYER 169 

pils and of parents for the sake of their children, 
and of all others in proportion to the measure of 
their personal influence and their consequent per¬ 
sonal responsibility. 

HIS PRAYER FOR OTHER DISCIPLES 

Verses 20-24 

In these verses our Lord’s intercessory prayer 
sweeps out beyond Himself and beyond the Eleven, 
to whom His heart was so tenderly bound, and 
takes in the whole wide world of believing dis¬ 
ciples who should follow in their train. What 
a wonderful prayer! What a marvelous inspira¬ 
tion! Here is where we come in. We may have 
felt that we were left out because we do not be¬ 
long to that inner circle of the first small group. 
But, blessed be His Holy Name, He did not leave 
us out; but looking down the long vista of time, 
He cried: 1 ‘Neither pray I for these alone but for 
them also which shall believe on me through their 
word.” 

There are two things upon which His heart is 
now set in behalf of all the disciples. First, that 
they may be one as He and His Father are One; 
and second, that they may be with Him where 
He is. 

His prayer is not for formal union of organisa¬ 
tion, nor uniformity of creed, but for unity of 
spirit; *‘ that they may be one.” Union has to 


170 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


do only with the mechanics of things and may be 
nothing more than physical juxtaposition. Uni¬ 
formity has to do only with the intellect and may 
mean nothing more than mere conformity. But 
unity has to do with the deeper and more mean¬ 
ingful things of the Spirit and means a spiritual 
oneness. I do not think Christ was ever deeply 
concerned with the mere mechanics of union, nor 
the conformity of uniformity, but He was con¬ 
cerned with a deep and deathless interest in the 
spiritual unity of His people. His prayer was 
that they might see, eye to eye, and face to face, 
and understand the same things. 

The one very great reason for this devoutly 
to be desired end was, that the “ world may be¬ 
lieve that Thou hast sent me.” On one occasion 
the world was looking in on the disciples and it 
exclaimed, “Behold, how they love one another!” 
And it is recorded immediately following that 
“many believed on Him.” Jangling inharmonies 
among God’s people; the nudging and elbowing 
of each other; attacks and counter-attacks are not 
very conducive to the producing of faith in Christ. 
“Behold, how sweet and how pleasant it is for 
brethren to dwell together in unity.” 

The second petition of this part of His great 
intercessory prayer in behalf of the disciples is: 
“Father, I will that they also whom thou hast 
given me be with me where I am.” 

What an assuring prayer! Can it ever fail of 
an answer? Will God the Father shut His ear 


i 


HIS INTERCESSORY PRAYER 171 

to this petition and refuse to respond? If one 
single soul committed to Christ is ever lost, then 
this prayer is unanswered; and if one part of 
Christ’s prayer be broken, how do we know that 
any of it will be heard? But have we not already 
heard Him say: ‘ 4 Thou hearest me always”? 
Now, His prayer is that not one disciple, however 
weak or faltering he may be, shall ever be lost. 
It does not matter what miserable failures of the 
Christian life one may make, he shall not be cast 
out ultimately. He may lose his reward. He 
may have no crown of glory. There may be no 
welcome plaudit: “Well done, good and faithful 
servant”; and he may be saved “yet as by fire,” 
but saved ultimately he must be and will be, be¬ 
cause Christ died for him and lives to intercede 
for him, and prayed for him. What glorious 
safety and certainty! 

The purpose in this part of the prayer is found 
in the words: “That they may behold my glory 
which Thou hast given me.” 

His glory is conditioned upon every one for 
whom He died being with Him at the last to be¬ 
hold that glory. And the certainty of every one 
being there rests upon the Father’s faithfulness 
and not on that of the disciples. If one fail to be 
there it is therefore God’s failure and not his. 

An old Scotch woman who had been a conse¬ 
crated Christian for years was on her deathbed. 
Just to test her faith, her minister said: “And, 
Mary, suppose when you die you should discover 


172 


THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS 


that all of your hopes had been misfounded and 
that God had denied you?” With an undisturbed 
smile upon her face, she replied: “Oh, sir, my 
loss would be nothing compared to His loss, be¬ 
cause I would lose only my soul, but He would 
lose my soul and His honour.” 

She was right about it. God’s honour and 
Christ’s glory are at stake in this matter. They 
have promised to save every soul who would trust 
them and if they lose one soul their honour and 
power are gone and they may lose all. If the 
devil can get one soul away from God he can get 
others. Then if he could get some and did not, 
they are saved not by the grace of God, but by 
the disgrace of the devil. Oh, who believes that 
it shall ever be so? We shall rest in the confident 
faith that Christ’s prayer shall not go unan¬ 
swered and that we shall all be with Him where 
He is. 

What glorious inspiration in this intercessory 
prayer of Christ for us. It is good to know that 
there are friends and loved ones constantly bear¬ 
ing us up in their prayers before the Father. To 
have a band of personal intercessors throughout 
the country is a joy and unspeakable glory. 

I stepped into my prayer meeting room one 
night when my people thought I was out of the 
city and as I entered they were in prayer. One 
of the deacons was saying, “God bless our pastor; 
clothe him always with power in his work; give 
him thy grace and wisdom for his tasks; encour- 


HIS INTERCESSORY PRAYER 173 

age his heart by prospering the work of the Lord 
in his hands.’’ That prayer gave my heart a 
great thrill. It was not said for my ears because 
he did not know I was present, but it was said 
to the Father. To have a praying wife and pray¬ 
ing children is a great blessing. To have a pray¬ 
ing father and mother is the very acme of earth’s 
crown. To know that at a certain hour each eve¬ 
ning a grey-haired mother from her invalid chair 
is pouring forth a torrent of petitions in behalf of 
the far-away son is inspiration and encourage¬ 
ment inexpressible. 

But beyond all of these and above and better 
than any of them is the inspiring thought that 
while the Lord of Glory was here on this earth 
He spanned the centuries with His piercing eye 
and caught a glimpse of me, and understanding 
my weaknesses and my needs, lifted up His voice 
in earnest petition and prayed that, ultimately, I 
might be with Him where He is. Glorious prayer! 

“Lord, Teach Us to Pray.” 


THE END 

































J o * y. * A 

^ jA' t 0 N c <■ 

A • * - 


0 ^ 


\\v » A </> 

-L r> y ^A,» . <L V 

•* A o -v, . s «G 

V c 0 N G f)> « 

A O $ S * J 4 i 

A *+ ^ ’■'‘^ig'’’ *1 p 

c* ^ ■ s ^ o.: A*- A AyiA <. o c» o N 

-.A **•■'* v^'^%* 5 “ , /,”» t \ *•*■'* v^ O” 

✓ , "A r- <3 Cj * -<« v v 

A ^ /-.Of. y < 5 - 

A 





?A' * Av ^’VA aa^>°\ 
^/:M:V ;|g|\ 

* -•*'"’ aaAa \%\ 

■ \ 

* A < -sFoTvN^at y 


* A 


■ft 


%* ** < * A " A> . „ <A 
3 V A * % <%> 

* '“"AAA >. ^ 

g>: v :»w 

'a 


** V <V - 
* ^ * 



v/ 1 

.%; - : A K^X‘ • A •”••• V'* 

■A A * jaWa r A A * 

: %$ . l&l c z ^ ^ • 

.A'’ ^ ° ’• "h‘ .;'■ * A$y *%>. " r A <£, o 

r * oV -> L K' A ^ J ■ 'A * * A? u 

% ^ V* * *£3 d> -4 y v OA ^ 

*> <0 <* y o * X ^ A O * , <S < 6 ^ ^ 

0°'A - ^ ' A »GT * - % * * 0°' o 1 A« "<e 






" jy »'■*«, V v> ■.'•*’ r* > ,0 

^c,* * jA A. ^V. a* ♦ A-A <■ ^ A 

v v « aaV : ^ c z * -a ° : "%► v 



> ^J,-, 

v > O ^ , s 

^ c 0 *< f ( ' 1' 0 ' « * ' v- 

v " * _^N\ . O C N V X 

v 

« op' » 




A WORLD LEADER IN P/ 

111 Thomson 
Cranberry To- 
( 724 ) 779-21 

"a. <A ' A ?' 'ii o 'J - * .A 





















A *• ^ 5 ,W^ / V' v K ,<-\. .^ - ‘V 

A (j N Cs A' » * s \l« - _. O^K \ ’ 

s /A*, <?> Ao PAP % A ,<*"■ 

X A ' £ 


U f 4* 

^ 10 Pp, V A X * 

/><a *> zx * 


.'"'V © \0 o 


^ ^ 

0 71 >C tt ‘ * 9 \ -\* A>' 

0 v \V o 

5-! ’■ 'P 

Aav= A, .a' ; 

^ V 

C, A> 

A A. ° ‘I 






v> 


* A O *f -r- 

* > , 0 > * ' f 0 / % 

^ ■.^A V “P. 

Ap 


s A-A// A ,,, c 

4- o CV . 15 * Pp 

^ „ 4 ’ a2, ^ \ 

« o x r §i^%^" ^ v 

<> o x° ©* > 

v ■ * 

X"-’ J. < \ _ 



* ^ -* 

<< y o « k ^ <^\ o / 

-C., 9 y a\ r o N 0 ^ ^ * * 

-j “P, ,\H> v. 4* o (\V , •» 

■V <p <A «• ~<v ** «-> ,-v V 

^ ' aAa o o 0 ♦ 


* / %i- 

j. \v* At. ^ , r 

V A. ■ cl' y 

\ * iv 'P. <y ,. 0 > A 

,\A T- •< ■>) ^ *p . 

Ar (\f\ ip I- \ r ' 

'V> < 



Pc. c 
V 



* &*+. \ 
A 


•P 


•y -P .;^' *» 

> ■? '>C-. A' ^ 

^ P : 

^ o \° ° x . 

<<• 


* ** ^ -a -■ ^ * \x x 

'• ’ ^ * -o A 

a ^ V c 

4 


^ * y o’* x ^ A 

. 


c* 


r ^ A 
■5* 

A 0- % ' * 

•V s ;,r^/r a 

/A c V v a\' o 

«a <X \ \Wj-W/ ' h xf> ,C \ 

■' Z v ■>• 



<p * ^ 

’5, */ 


'O **, s % iG tp 

V o - 0 V * 8 4 - Pp> 

^ 0 'P 

v ^ ’x 





' 0 * ‘ * C' „m %'''.,s' < 

P .*A^C - 0 °' 

,/- <>* V 

O o N 


^ V" 


*< 

^ V - " 3 1°°^ + . 

\ v *As< a y > ff- cy// 

- ^',* ,o° ° C/ '•rp' 

ppaa '' A^:*.■:'.% 

* ^ # *AAs(V, % av „ 

V J aa ^ \, ^yyV ■ A tP |\' 

3 V/ ; ‘A WV ^ ,A X> ' P n - ~ s^ ® 

o<-\ * ^ % -/Papa a - 

^ ,a " o ''j s'* <xy < 

A> C 0 N G 4- * 0^ o' 1 fi >P ^ 

<■& » r ^t v . <<■ Ci ('P A -? Ap 

A A A ., U p #f/^fe> ^ ^ a' 





















































